Requiem of the Forsaken
by authoressnebula
Summary: Post 5x05: The Ocean House Hotel is supposed to be a regular haunting. All they can find, however, are half-truths and hidden secrets. And, as Dean knows too well, sometimes the truth, even more than the lies, can be the thing that gets you killed.
1. Chapter 1: The Unknown Past

___A/N: So this year, I decided to write a scary story in honor of Halloween, perhaps my favorite holiday of all time. I'll keep updating (and keep you on your toes) until Halloween. This particular inspiration came from a level in a game called "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines" to which I claim no ownership. If you like having the pants scared off of you, and enjoy not being able to sleep due to watching every corner of your room until the sun rises, play the game. It's good for a great scare._

* * *

___In the greenest of our valleys  
By good angels tenanted,  
Once a fair and stately palace-  
Radiant palace- reared its head._

_But evil things, in robes of sorrow,_  
_Assailed the monarch's high estate._  
_(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow_  
_Shall dawn upon him desolate!)_

_-Edgar Allan Poe, "The Haunted Palace" (1839)_

"Haunted hotel," Dean muttered, shaking his head. "Just keeps sounding stranger every time I hear it." Still, he leaned back against the Impala and took a good look at the place.

It _was_ creepy looking. No two ways about it. It wasn't as bad as being attacked by a pretty Paris Hilton, but the broken down boards of the five story, condemned hotel still left Dean fighting off a shiver.

"Any idea why it was condemned?" Dean asked, glancing back into the car. Sam was sitting in the passenger seat frowning at his laptop, looking tempted to smack it if his hand motions were any indication. Dean gave a brief grin before turning back to the place. It felt good to have Sam doing the geek part of the job. Dean hadn't been very good at it. Sure, good enough to get the usual info, but he still wasn't as good as Sam.

Actually, it was just good to have Sam at all. The few weeks they'd been separated had seemed like months. Dean had been so weary, so ready to toss the towel in. Keeping away from his brother had seemed like such a good idea, to just give Dean some time to recuperate.

Then Zachariah had done his mind mojo and thrown Dean forward a few years, and when Dean had convinced Sam to return to the job, he'd wondered why the hell he hadn't done it sooner.

"A fire," Sam said, a frown prevalent in his voice. "I think."

It was Dean's turn to frown. "You think? You don't ever think with your research. You just know. Why think?"

Sam shrugged. "Half of the sources are claiming a fire of some kind, while others cite non-damage to the hotel and claim it was rats or mold."

Rats. Dean shivered for real this time. "I hate rats," he grumbled.

"I know," came the understanding reply. "If there were rats in there, though, they would've fled ages ago. No food, and the one thing every source agrees on is the decrepit state of the place. Rotted floors, broken windows."

That's what had gotten Gina Moreles killed, some ten years ago. She'd wandered into the house on a dare and had fallen through the rotted staircase, according to her friends and the authorities. Ever since, she'd been haunting the place, and last week some other stupid kid had died at her hands.

Dean pursed his lips and gave the hotel another glance over. It didn't look rotted and run down to him. It just looked empty, vacant, and old. Dirty. The paint was peeling, sure, and the door looked easy enough to open with just a breath of air. Cloth from the curtains inside waved in the slight breeze.

But he counted two windows broken, and both were on the ground floor, probably from teens trying to get in. Half of the sources were right at least: Dean didn't see any fire damage, either. And he didn't see how there were rotted floors inside.

"I'm starting to doubt that Gina went through the floor," Sam said from the car, and Dean grinned. He'd forgotten how good it felt to be in sync with a partner, with his brother.

"Me neither," Dean said, pushing off from the car. "We'll check it out tonight, though. Until then, we'll find a motel that's not haunted to stay in, maybe do a little bit more research, snag some food. Then we'll see how haunted the place really is."

"Library, if we can," Sam said when Dean slid into the driver's side. "My wi-fi connection's for crap."

Dean gave a nod, then spared the place one last glimpse. There was just something wrong about the place, something that made him uneasy. And Dean didn't feel that way about most things. Lucifer, sure, but Dean figured that was sort of the point. Angels and demons, definitely an uneasy feeling there, unless they were Cas.

A five story resort-like hotel that had been abandoned in the 60's? Wouldn't have been on Dean's list. Hell, it wouldn't have made their list at all if they hadn't decided to leave the angel thing to Cas and just take regular jobs for awhile.

In the passenger seat next to him, Sam was quiet, still trying to get his laptop to work. Unless Dean gave any serious indication towards a conversation, he highly doubted that Sam would say anything. Not unless it pertained to a job. Sam hadn't really spoken much since they'd gotten back together. Not completely silent, just...quieter than usual. Wasn't even really that awkward.

Still didn't mean Dean liked it, though. There was a sudden longing in his chest for the days when they'd just talked freely, without worrying about the eggshells to step on between them. Dean hated feeling like that, and hated it even more because it was with Sam. He'd never felt that way about Sam before. At least, not before Hell and Ruby and the dickish angels stepped in.

He cleared his throat. "You get a feeling for the house?" he asked, half to start a conversation, half to get Sam's thoughts on it.

Sam looked up from the laptop to glance at the hotel in the side mirror. "Yeah," he said finally. "There's something seriously wrong. It feels...cold." He turned to Dean. "You too, huh?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "Me too." He felt better the minute he pulled back onto the main road, leaving the abandoned hotel behind. If the way Sam's shoulders dropped a full inch were any indication, he felt the same way.

Dennis, Massachusetts, was one of the few cities in Massachusetts that hadn't actually _had_ an active haunting until the article the week before. Frankly, for Dean, he hadn't really been surprised. Almost every city on the coast of Massachusetts had a haunting of some kind. And he wasn't even going to get into Salem. They'd almost passed it up simply on that principle alone.

But for the most part, Dennis was a nice, small town place that had an ample coastline, small mom n' pop diners, rustic Cape Cod housing, and little libraries dotted here and there. In short, it was just a nice place to live.

So when Sam had pointed that out, Dean had agreed it was possibly something worth checking out. Generally, the main claims to a Massachusetts haunting involved history of some type. Something from when the country began, or the infamous witch trials that every hunter, beginner or tenured, had checked out for the sake of checking it out. (There'd been one spirit, but he'd supposedly been put to rest years ago by someone in the 1980's.) They didn't generally involve some condemned property from the 60's, and that had been the most deciding factor for the both of them. If there was going to be an honest to god haunt in Massachusetts, this place sounded like it'd be it.

The main drive, Dean was quickly learning, was very quiet. It didn't stretch for very long, but there were still copious amounts of restaurants and, more notably, bed and breakfasts. Off in the distance, Dean could make out a few sandy dunes, and the smell of the ocean drifted through the open window of the Impala. "You could've filmed _Murder She Wrote_ here," Dean commented, frowning as he peered around. No cops anywhere to be seen. He'd bet good money that if they were around, they'd be talking with regulars at one of the home-cooked meal restaurants.

"I don't see a single motel that would fit in with what we usually pick," Sam warned, scanning his side of the road. "I honestly think the best we could do would be-"

"One of the B&B's," Dean finished for him. "Yeah, I was thinkin' the same thing." Plus, warm breakfast. In a town like this, it was bound to be good, no matter where they stayed. "Eh, we've got enough cash to cover it." They were only staying a night, anyways. Maybe two, max.

The usual green sign for a library caught Dean's eye, and he made the left down a side drive of Main Street. "Library first work okay for you, or are you hungry?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. "It's really either or for me, honestly. You pick."

Dean weighed the response in his head. Not the instant capitulation it'd been when Sam had first rejoined him, but it still wasn't his little brother asserting a choice. This was the middle, safe road, of noting Dean's offer and then letting Dean choose. Not anything Sammy would've done before. Living twenty-six odd years with someone tended to make you honor the decisions made by others and plenty okay with stating your own.

Unless you'd recently gone through some sort of brother break-up, complete with teary and desperate phone calls in the middle of the night, angels doing their best to further divide you, demons and Lucifer out to get you. The usual.

"Library it is, then," Dean said. It was a little late for lunch, but they'd been munching on random chips and candy for awhile. They'd be all right for food until dinner. More than an ample amount of time to get research done.

Sam was already wrapping up his laptop to put back into his bag. The library was just ahead, a small, quaint little building that stood alone in a very grassy, but well manicured area. A perfect example of the town of Dennis.

After waiting for traffic to pass, Dean turned in to find a parking spot.

"You're...really not going to eat that on the bed, are you?"

Finally. Dean inwardly smirked at the hesitant but outraged voice of his brother. He'd known that eventually Sam would cave and start speaking on his own if Dean did something crazy enough.

And eating chili fries on a beautiful white quilt that covered the bed was just the way to do it.

Outwardly Dean gave his brother an innocent look. "I won't make a mess," he protested. "C'mon, I wouldn't do that to the bed or Mrs. Pempshire." Mrs. _Plump_shire Dean secretly thought, but it suited her. A little old woman who looked more like Santa Claus, Mrs. Pempshire had fussed over them both when they'd gotten there. So far, the librarian who had suggested the Shells and Sea Bed and Breakfast hadn't been wrong.

Sam gave out a small sigh. "You're making me nervous. Just...come sit over at the table with me? I won't touch your fries, promise."

"Better not," Dean muttered half-heartedly under his breath, but he stood and made his way over to the table, because it was one thing to draw Sam into a conversation, that was fine. Leading his brother to believe that he'd rather sit as far from him as possible was another.

Still. The chili fries were really good. The diner the librarian had also recommended was damn good as well.

Once he was seated, taking great pains to not get any chili on his brother's spread out papers, Dean leaned back in his seat. "Okay, Sparky. Go."

As if he'd been waiting for the order, Sam quickly began reading through everything he had. "The Ocean House Hotel was originally built in the 1920's by a man named Harold Lee. The hotel was apparently the place to go to be seen; a lot of locals went as well as tourists. Over the years several movie stars stayed, giving the hotel a five star rating, surprising given its size and its location."

Dean merely took a sip of his soda and waited. As much as he didn't like the historical background, anything about the place would be better known then not. Especially as things tended to go wrong.

Besides, there was something off about the hotel. They'd seen the article in the paper about the funeral for a Thomas Becker who'd died in a supposed haunted house. Haunted by a teenager who'd died there years before in a condemned resort that had shut its doors for mysterious reasons in 1963. The entire thing had something dark and wrong about it.

"So what went wrong?" he couldn't help but ask. "Place is doing fine, then all of a sudden, woosh? It's done?"

"It was outdated, Dean," Sam said. "More motels for less were cropping up all over the place in bigger towns, and while Dennis had never really been a town built on tourists, the Ocean House Hotel had needed it.

"In 1963, it looks like the hotel declared bankruptcy. Coupled with a rat infestation and a fire that supposedly destroyed one of the floors, the owners at the time decided it was time to shut the place down."

"'Supposedly'?" Dean asked, frowning. "Seriously, nobody knows what the hell happened?"

Sam shrugged. "Fifth and top floor, apparently. I can look up to see if the owners had any sort of insurance policy on the place, and if they did, maybe see if they claimed fire damage. But so far, none of the sources, not even the books written on the history of the town, give me anything concrete. Just that it was there one day and then shut down the next."

Dean shifted uneasily in his chair. Over the top of his computer, Sam was grimacing and biting his lip. Mysterious fires never boded well with the Winchesters. "Okay, give me the ghost," Dean said instead.

Sam nodded eagerly, all too happy to stop looking at the possibility of a fire. "Gina Moreles, died in 1976. She was back on college break and went up to the house with a small group of friends. The group was playing 'truth or dare' and dared Gina to go inside and see if the fifth floor was really burned out."

Apparently the lack of information regarding the place wasn't just weird to them, either. If a group of college kids could see it was shoddy reporter work...

"Gina never made it past the first floor. From what the kids say, Gina fell through the rotten stairs leading up to the second floor and died instantly. None of the kids were charged, and the death was ruled an accident." Sam glanced up at him. "I've got names, if you want them," he added.

"Of the lame-ass reporters from the 60's?" Dean said. Sam rolled his eyes but didn't say anything. "Seriously, either it's burned out or it's not. This smells like a secret."

"Yeah, I know," Sam murmured. "At any rate, ever since then, Gina's reported to haunt the lobby. People report hearing her scream when they approach the hotel at night."

Dean ate another chili fry while he contemplated. His eyes caught one of the papers Sam had printed off, and he carefully wiped his fingers before pulling it out. The photo on the page showed two young people, a man and a woman, both smiling. The girl's photo looked dated, and her hairstyle was a dead giveaway to the 70's. The boy's, on the other hand, looked much more recent. "Thomas Becker?" he asked.

Sam nodded. "And Gina Moreles. Two teens dead in the same hotel...people in this town apparently _can_ put two and two together."

Dean snorted but said nothing. The reporters from the 60's were completely incompetent. Reading over the page, Dean began to frown. Thomas hadn't fallen to his death like Gina; they'd found him wedged in underneath the front desk. "Woah," was all he said. "That's a little...harsh."

"And weird," Sam agreed. "Wouldn't you think that Gina would've dropped him like she'd been dropped?"

God this whole job just kept getting weirder and weirder. "None of this makes sense," Dean said with a sigh, tossing the paper back onto the pile. "Where's Gina buried?"

"She's not; she was claustrophobic, so in honor of that, her parents had her cremated instead."

Which meant heading into the house.

Great.

Dean glanced over at the clock hanging on the wall and sighed. It was almost eight; they'd spent more time in the library then he'd thought. "Only person we could talk to at this point would be Mrs. Pempshire. She said her family's owned the B&B her entire life."

"Worth a shot. I highly doubt the investigative reports of the 60's are going to get us very far."

The derisive tone of Sam's voice only made Dean grin. If there was anything Sam hated, it was shoddy research. Granted, that was because anything hidden meant they could get killed on the job, but Dean knew a lot of it stemmed from Sam's own ability to find pretty much anything on everything. He simply assumed that everyone else could do the same.

"Let's go talk to Mrs. Pempshire, then," Dean said, cleaning the last of the chili fries off the plate. God they were good. "Away from the other guests."

Sam gave him a pointed look. "Might want to change your shirt first, unless you think chili stain is the new in look."

Dean immediately whipped his head down to look at his shirt, only to see it perfectly clean, not a drop of precious chili anywhere near it. Slowly he raised his head to glare at his brother, who was innocently turning away to grab his jacket. "You little bitch," he breathed.

He didn't get a direct answer, but Dean knew he caught a glimpse of Sam's lips turning upwards. If the kid could still tease, if the kid could still smile, then maybe they weren't as screwed as he'd thought. They could still get past things and move on.

And Dean would always take that, no matter whether his shirt's cleanliness or his own careful eating habits were caught in the crossfire.


	2. Chapter 2: The Uncertain Knowledge

___I just need to know  
Whatever has happened  
The truth will free my soul_

___-Within Temptation, "Somewhere" (2004)_

"More coffee, dear?"

Dean gave a smile and found himself with another cup full of hot, caffeinated goodness. Thank god they were doing the hotel tonight, because Dean would never get to sleep at this rate. He was on cup four or five, he wasn't sure. And frankly, how Mrs. Pempshire (call me Gloria) kept her coffee pot on continuous refill was way more mysterious than the haunted hotel could ever be.

Sam didn't even get asked before his cup was refilled as well. "Anywhere else we should look at? Anything that we couldn't find anywhere else in Massachusetts?"

Gloria lit up. "I know you boys were heading out tomorrow, was it? Or the day after?"

"Depends on when we get called to the next job," Dean said. Under the guise of traveling employees/wannabe tourists, they'd asked her where to go, what to see in their limited time. And so far, the list was actually making Dean want to stop, if just for another day. The beach, a downtown walk promised to be filled with musicians and artists, and a taste-testing festival scheduled for the weekend. Dean could handle that. It beat dealing with angels and demons any day.

Gloria was still thinking. "Well, there's always the museums, but the bigger ones about Cape Cod are outside the town. You could charter a boat for the day: there's plenty of whales and even seals to be seen, especially this time of year."

It only took a glance from Sam to tell Dean it was time to sell the pitch. "What was that house up on the other side of town? I asked a few people at the diner and heard that it was...haunted? Are there tours or something?"

Without hesitating Gloria shook her head rapidly. "Good heavens, no, no tours through the Ocean House, and thank the Lord for it. That place has been condemned for years. Just last week a local boy died in that house. It was a tragedy, a real shame. But the kids 'round here won't listen to reason. They keep clambering up that hill to get to the hotel."

Dean feigned surprise, knowing Sam would do the same. "Oh, god, we had no idea," Sam said, picking up the story. "Is that why they say it's haunted?"

Gloria sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Not for Thomas, no. About thirty years ago another child died: Gina Moreles. Jumped from the second story balcony overlooking the lobby."

Now _that_ wasn't what they'd expected to hear. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean could see Sam sitting up straighter. "She jumped?" Dean asked. The report had said she'd fallen through the stairs; they'd said nothing about a balcony.

Gloria nodded slowly, as if remembering. "I'd just had my second child, Julia," she said quietly. "I remember thinking to myself how horrible it would be if I'd lost my daughter the way the Moreles had lost theirs. Even from where we stood on the main road, blocked off from the hotel, we could still see her bloody body being dragged out on a stretcher."

Dean whipped his head over to Sam, knowing he probably looked as shocked as Sam did. "And the authorities agreed she'd fallen?"

Gloria rolled her eyes at that. "Nobody agreed about what happened, but they found her, broken and bleeding, on the floor of the lobby. It was a tragedy."

Speaking of nobody agreeing... "Why was it condemned, do you know?" Dean asked. "It didn't look that old to us."

A shadow passed through her eyes, but it was gone in the next moment. "I was in my twenties when the fire happened. Killed a few people. It was a terrible moment. Entire place was deemed a fire hazard, and they shut it down."

"I think we'll stick with the beach tomorrow, then," Sam said smoothly, catching her eye and giving her a smile. And just like that Gloria was smiling again as well, a cheerful hostess.

They stayed to talk a little bit more about the taste-testing festival (which Dean really wanted to go to now after all the talk of the various meats on the grill) then headed back to their room. The room was on the second floor, but their window was right next to the trellis. There'd be no need to go back through the front door when they returned.

Not that that was at the foremost of Dean's mind at that point. "You find anything about the fire killing people?" Dean asked after shutting the room's door behind them.

"No, and did you see the look on her face?" Sam replied. He bit his lip, arms crossed in front of him. "I don't like this. There's something not right about this entire job."

"Yeah, no crap," Dean snorted. He glanced around the room, absently looking for what they'd need. "I say we wait another hour, then head out."

"Wait, what? No, we should-"

Even before Dean moved his gaze back, Sam had already stopped. "Should what?" Dean prompted, keeping his tone casual. "C'mon Sammy, should what?"

Sam flushed a little but finally said, "We should wait until tomorrow, try and get more of a feel on the place. Going in now feels like we're...we're going in blind, and I don't like it."

Not that Dean didn't agree. The entire thing had WRONG stamped across it in bright red ink, but waiting wasn't going to help them. "I really doubt anyone's gonna say anything different though, Sam. Everyone's got their story set up the way they believe it."

"That's just it though: it's a story, Dean. The entire thing feels rehearsed. Not so much a game of telephone, where everyone's heard one thing and it keeps changing as it goes, but more like..."

Dean's stomach twisted. "More like they're all deliberately saying something that's not true," he finished quietly. "They're setting up a story about what happened."

Sam shifted uneasily from one foot to another. "I meant to tell you this, but the library has all the newspapers going back to the early 1900's, at least. There's one day missing: April 13th, 1963."

"The day the hotel 'burned'?" Dean asked. Sam nodded. "Well that's just...peachy," he muttered, before glancing up at his brother. "You really think you could get something more truthful out of the town if we waited another day?"

After a long moment, Sam shook his head in resignation. "No. I just...going in blind with a half-truth is what-" He swallowed hard and looked away.

Dean's gut rolled for an entirely different reason. The last time they'd both been fed half-truths, Sam had wound up ganking Lilith and opening the last seal. They'd both nearly died as a result.

Sam was still gazing down, his eyes locked on the papers strewn across the table. Dean stepped forward and gently nudged Sam's shoulder. "I know," he said, even quieter than he had before. "But we're not split up anymore, like we were before. We're back, and that means between the both of us, we can figure out what really happened as soon as we get inside. Okay?"

It took a moment, but Sam finally glanced up to meet Dean's gaze. Dean raised his eyebrows. "Think we can take on the Ocean House?" he asked.

Slowly Sam's lips turned up. "Yeah," he said softly. "But you're going in first."

Dean grinned. "With my very chili-stain free shirt."

Sam huffed a laugh and turned to the table. "We should do our best to clean up; if Gloria comes up here for some reason while we're gone, the last thing she needs to see is our research on the hotel."

That would take them maybe five minutes, but Dean nodded. "Good point. And we might as well go over it all again anyways, maybe see something we didn't before. Any way to find out what happened to the owners?"

They had a little less than an hour to kill anyways. Might as well spent the time trying to fill in as many of the numerous information gaps as they could.

* * *

It was a little after eleven when they finally were able to sneak away. Gloria _had_ come upstairs around ten as they were double-checking all their gear, wanting to know if they were interested in a warm drink before bed. "It gets cold up here this time of year," she'd said. "I always make sure my guests have an extra blanket or three, but I'd forgotten that I'd just washed them earlier. My knees aren't what they used to be: would either of you mind...?"

And so it was that Dean Winchester, demon and monster hunter extraordinaire, became the laundry delivery boy for half an hour. Sam wound up folding all the blankets, and Dean wasn't sure if that was worse or not from being the one to deliver them. They were treated to warm milk with some sort of spice mixed in (and Dean was denying any accusations that he'd finished up the pot which, apparently wasn't really bottomless) and cookies she'd baked just that day.

"Focus on the bags, Dean, and not your stomach," Sam hissed from the ground. Dean made a face at him but slung the bag more firmly over his shoulder. The trellis wasn't one of those plastic types, but good old fashioned wood. Made it easier to climb down.

"I can do both," Dean said, or tried to. It came out more like, "Ah 'en woo boh," since he was still chewing on the last of his chocolate chip cookies. God they were good. If the rest of this town cooked anywhere near as good as the diner and Gloria did, Dean could happily eat here for the rest of his life. Or have it air-delivered to wherever they were.

Sam was rolling his eyes by the time Dean landed on the ground. "You've already had, like, ten of them," Sam pointed out. "You're gonna get sick."

Dean made a point of swallowing before he spoke, which he thought was pretty damn polite of him. "Hey, I wouldn't talk, Sasquatch: you put away your fair share as well."

"Not as many as you," Sam contended. "Did you at least close the window before you came down?"

Dean didn't even dignify that with a response, simply started walking towards the car. What type of hunter did Sam think he was? Of course he'd shut the window behind him.

Still, when Sam passed by him, Dean cast a surreptitious look over his shoulder to make sure. Closed, just like he'd thought.

"I knew you'd look."

It was Dean's turn to roll his eyes. "Yeah, whatever. You made me doubt my own awesomeness. Are you ready or not?"

"Yeah."

The soft tone, more than the hesitation, caught Dean's attention. He glanced over to where Sam was placing his bag in the trunk. Sam's face would've looked blank to anyone passing by, but if you knew where to look, you'd see the worry in his gaze in the way he wrinkled his brow ever so slightly. The uneasiness in the tightness near his eyes. The fear in the way he bit his lower lip ever so.

And Dean knew where to look.

He tossed his bag next to Sam's but grabbed the trunk lid before Sam could close it. "I don't like it either," he said, when he knew he had his brother's attention. "But it's the best we're gonna do, bro."

"I just..." Sam sighed, shoulders dropping. "I'd just like to know what it is we're getting into. I hate not being told the full story."

"Yeah, no kidding," Dean snorted. He let Sam close the trunk quietly, and then slid into the driver's seat. One of these days, they were going to sit down and talk between each other about what had really happened those last few days before Lucifer. And about the year before. As painful as it would be, they really needed to do it. For Sam's sake, if anything else.

Because Dean hadn't been an innocent in the whole mess. Neither had Castiel. Sam couldn't keep taking all of the blame for what happened.

Sam slid in and carefully shut the door. Dean took that as his cue and started up the car. There wasn't any hiding her rumble, so he pulled out as fast as he could. Last thing he needed was for Gloria to come out. Hopefully she was asleep at that point; all the lights were off in the bed and breakfast.

The streets were dark and completely empty. Not even the streetlights remained on: the town was small enough that everything closed up for the night. Dean highly doubted any of the people here had spoken the word 'gang' in their lives. He made his way back to the other side of town and then carefully pulled into the drive. The small climb wasn't any big deal for the Impala, but Dean was still grateful that the hotel wasn't too high up on the hill.

He wasn't that grateful when he saw moving lights from inside. "What the-"

No car anywhere in the driveway. The light paused, then flashed up, then down. Like a flashlight.

Which meant-

"Son of a..." Sam started, but Dean was already flying out of the car. That meant they had a civilian inside, and that never, _ever_ ended well.

Dean was really starting to hate this job with every passing minute.

"Move fast," Dean ordered as Sam hurried out of the car. "Sooner we can get whoever it is out of the there, the easier things will be."

Sam didn't look happy in the slightest. "They can't have been here long." He caught the bag Dean tossed him with one hand, still frowning. "They could be anywhere inside though-"

"No, that's the first floor, and I'm guessing the lobby," Dean said, shutting the lid with a vicious bang. Mentally he apologized to his baby even as he headed for the main stairs. "We can handle it."

"And the ghost?"

Dean glanced up at the massive hotel and shrugged. "Not that bad. Only five stories."

"Only five stories," Sam repeated incredulously. "It's still huge, Dean. We usually deal with a house, two story at best. Or an office that's one floor. This place is massive, like a mansion. With multiple rooms for multiple guests."

"Okay, yes, we're screwed," Dean snapped, his gut clenching tighter with every single point Sam outlined. "You happy now?"

"No, not really."

Dean glanced over at his brother as they made their way up the small set of stairs. Sam looked just as sick to his stomach as Dean felt. Dean took a deep breath and caught Sam's arm. "We'll be fine. We'll make it through. It's just one measly ghost. How bad-"

"Don't finish that sentence," Sam said, though his lips were turning up into a grin. "That sentence never ends well."

Dean shrugged casually. "One of us might as well say it," he said bluntly. "Things are gonna go to hell anyways."

"Point."

Still, Sam had grinned, Sam was breathing better, and Dean found his own body responding to Sam's mood. Back in tune, back in black. They could handle this.

The glass doors were boarded up pretty well, well enough that even if you broke the glass on the other side to get in, Dean highly doubted you would. Still, one door was open just a small bit, and through the crack Dean could see nothing but darkness. Silently he switched his flashlight on, hearing Sam do the same. With a careful nudge of his boot he slid the door open and waited. Nothing jumped out at him, but more darkness was revealed. A tiny bit of moon would've helped, but the clouds covering the sky were taking care of that.

A sound off to the left had Dean swiveling, gun drawn and crossed with the flashlight. Seconds later he heard a female voice curse. Their unexpected civilian. Nodding to Sam he stepped inside, making his way over to what looked like an old check-in counter. The marble on top was pristine, if dusty, and the wood counter itself looked remarkably well in shape. No rotting there. He doubted the wood anywhere in this place was rotten.

He made his steps go heavy and moved around the counter. "Excuse me, Miss?"

There was still a gasp of surprise, and then he was around the corner. On the floor was a blonde girl, somewhere in her early twenties if Dean had to hazard a guess. She was on her hands and knees, her ponytail hanging haphazardly over one shoulder. "Miss?" Dean asked again.

"I need something," she said. "And I'm not leaving without it."

"And that would be...?"

The blonde stood, wiping the dust and grime off of her hands and then her knees, her skirt almost long enough to cover them. "Just...something," she insisted. "Please just go; as soon as I can find it, I can get out of here. You guys aren't helping in the slightest. I know the cops have been all over this place lately, but they didn't find it, and I need it, it's important, you don't understand-"

Even while Dean was blinking, trying to catch up, he heard Sam grunt and immediately turned his flashlight towards his brother, who was falling inside.

Two seconds later, the door he'd been keeping open slammed shut with one loud bang.

-Within Temptation, "Somewhere" (2004)


	3. Chapter 3: The Uneasy Beginning

___Oh, this house is haunted  
Oh, that's how I want it to be  
Oh, this house is haunted  
You can always stay here with me..._

___-Alice Cooper, "This House is Haunted" (2003)_

Even before Sam jumped up and hurried back Dean knew it was going to be a futile gesture at that. Sure enough, several hard tugs to the door did nothing: they were both locked up tight.

From the look on Sam's face when he turned to meet Dean's flashlight beam, he'd known as much. "Locked," he said flatly.

"What? No," the girl said, eyes wide. "You just opened it, it can't be locked!"

"Thought you weren't leaving without whatever you were searching for?" Dean asked with fake cheerfulness. The girl glared, but it was weak at best. Her eyes were darting back and forth, watching the insides of the place like they were going to jump out and bite her. Given how two people had died in the hotel, Dean figured it was still a possibility. Who knew what ghosts did?

"So much for getting her out," Sam said, stepping over towards them.

"You got the bags?"

"Yeah, they're both here. I don't know if we have enough ammo to fend off whatever can keep doors shut tight, though. Especially ones with the locks blown: I checked while you were wandering over here. They must've done it after the place was condemned. That's a pretty powerful spirit, Dean."

Dean shrugged. Without the flashlight, Dean could still make out his brother's face in the darkness, if he was close enough. And right now, his brother looked pissed off, worried, and scared. The usual winning trio. "We sit tight in one place, then, until we get a better idea of what we're looking for."

"Who _are_ you guys?"

They both turned to the girl, who was looking increasingly freaked out. "You guys aren't cops," she said firmly, though her voice wavered. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Dean pulled his flashlight up to catch her in the light. "Could ask you the same, Miss...?"

The girl bit her lip but folded. "Bethany. And again I ask, who the hell are you people?"

"Sam; this is my brother, Dean," Sam said gently. "What do you need so much?"

Bethany shook her head. "I came over here to find a watch. It was my brother's."

"Thomas?" Dean hazarded a guess, and Bethany nodded.

"Yes. I gave it to him for his last birthday and...they never found it on his b-body, so I thought I could try and find it."

"Never occurred to you that maybe stepping inside a place that's haunted and has killed two people might not be a swift idea?" Dean asked, raising his eyebrows. "Especially at night?"

"Haunted?" Bethany said. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, her long-sleeved sweater obviously not keeping her warm enough. "You guys think this place is haunted?"

"How did the cops say your brother died?"

"Bloody," she told Sam flatly. "I didn't ask for details." She glanced down under the counter where she'd been searching. "I just...I need that watch," she murmured softly. "I can't go home without it."

It wasn't really her fault: no one ever actually thought that a place marked as haunted was truly haunted. And with no locks on the door, Bethany had thought she was safe to get in and out fast. Especially when the watch had obviously meant a lot to her.

Dean totally got that. He briefly touched the space on his chest where his amulet should've been. Gifts to siblings meant something, dammit.

Still, that left them with a civilian to protect. Whomever the ghost was, it had enough power to batten down all the hatches and keep them inside. He wondered if the same thing had happened to Thomas, or Gina.

"How much do you know about Gina Moreles?" Sam asked, after a quick nod to Dean. Dean stepped out from behind the counter and let Sam take his place. While Sam quietly conferred with Bethany, Dean waved his flashlight around the room and got a good look at the place.

There were a ton of sofas, fashioned in the twenties if Dean had to hazard a guess based on shape, covered with dust cloths. The chandelier on high was impressive and had to have cost a bundle. Random plant pots were placed around the lobby, and there were still a few carts to put the luggage on. The tiled floor beneath him provided a soft tapping sound with each footstep. Probably marble, too. The whole place was ritzy, and Dean could well imagine it going out of business for lack of funds.

On the far right side, near the main doors, was a long hallway that led down to a few doors. Before the hallway, though, was the staircase. It was massive in size, and could easily have fit three people side by side without any problem. The gold railing needed serious polishing, and the red, carpeted steps themselves needed a vacuuming or five. It was still regal in appearance, however.

And there were no holes in the stairs to be found. "Fell through my ass," Dean muttered under his breath. If Gina didn't die there, then...

His eyes followed his flashlight up to the second floor. The stairs opened out onto a balcony that overlooked the huge lobby, then split off right and left to hallways with rooms. The gold railing of the stairs extended to the railing of the balcony, keeping people from falling off.

Like Gina supposedly had, if Gloria had been right. He dropped the flashlight beam to the ground and found no visible bloodstains. The entire floor was dusty, but clean. If Gina had died in the hotel, it hadn't been in the lobby.

As satisfied as he was going to get, Dean made his way back towards Sam and Bethany. If Bethany's posture was anything to go by, Sam had started explaining the whole, "Ghosts and demons and werewolves, oh my," story. Always got some interesting facial expressions.

"...the hotel," Sam was saying as he got closer. "And that's why we have to get you out of here."

"What about you guys?" Bethany whispered. She looked two seconds away from passing out. "I-I mean, if...if Gina's still hanging around, then...oh god, I can't believe I'm saying this. Aren't you guys in danger then, too?"

"Danger's what we do," Dean said, inserting himself into the conversation. "And not to make you freak out more, but I don't think Gina's our ghost."

"I was getting that feeling, too," Sam said. "Look." He shone his flashlight under the counter, where Thomas had been found. Not a speck of blood anywhere to be found, which was what Dean had been afraid of. Sam met his gaze with the same grim-faced look.

"I don't understand," Bethany said, swallowing hard. "I don't understand _any_ of this. How are you getting what feeling? What's really going on?"

"The minute we know, we'll tell you," Dean said, before turning to Sam. "I didn't find a thing. No rotten stairs, no blood stains on the floor, nothing. Tons of things for a spirit to throw around, though, so I don't think the lobby's the safest place to stay."

"Except whatever it is hasn't made a move yet," Sam pointed out. "It knows we're here, or it wouldn't have locked us in. It's like it's..."

Waiting. Dean tightened his grip on his gun. Whatever it was, it was waiting. "We'll try the doors again," Dean said. To Bethany, he ordered, "You stay with us. You don't wander off on your own; you latch onto one of us and you don't let go. You hear me?"

Bethany nodded frantically. "Yeah, not a problem. I can follow orders. I'm good at following directions: you should ask my professors."

Freaked out but willing to play ball. Dean could handle that: it was better than screaming and sobbing. "Okay. Let's try the doors, then." He made his way back around the counter and across the lobby, Sam and Bethany next to him. "What'd you get out of her about Gina?" he asked quietly.

"Nothing," Sam replied, equally as soft. "She never knew her, never knew the Moreles. Complete blank as far as information goes."

Yeah, this was a great start. "First things first: get Bethany out, then move," Dean ordered. With Sam standing behind him and Bethany latched firmly onto his brother, Dean went for the doors. He tried the butt of his gun on the glass, hoping to crack it, but all it did was bounce off. His fingers tried to find a purchase on the inside of the doors where they met, but his tugging got nowhere. Frustrated, he tried the handle again, but nothing happened. The locks had been drilled out, that much was obvious: only the latches to keep the doors shut remained.

"I'll try," Sam said, stepping forward. Bethany moved to stand beside Dean while Sam examined the doors carefully. He gaged the distance, planted his feet, then lifted his leg to kick the doors open.

He never even touched them. Sam suddenly went flying backwards and across the lobby. "Sam!" Dean shouted, turning and running after him. The elevator in the back of the lobby, beneath the balcony, suddenly dinged, and the doors opened in time for Sam to land inside. The doors shut impossibly quick, and Dean slammed into them hard. "Sammy!" he shouted.

There was no sound. Dean stepped back and frantically tried to see where the elevator had gone, but all the lights were off. "Did you see what lit up?" he turned to ask Bethany, but found her frozen in the middle of the room, trembling hands covering her mouth. "Bethany!"

She shook her head. "N-None of them lit," she managed a moment later, words muffled by her hands. "Oh my god, you...you guys w-weren't kidding."

Civilian on his hands. None of the stories fitting what was happening.

Sam, missing.

Dean pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes as hard as he could. When he opened them, he had to blink the spots away, but he felt more focused. He glanced at the numbers on the elevator again. B, L, 2, 3, 4, 5. Basement, lobby, floors two through five. Plenty of places to go.

That meant they were gonna have to start exploring, exactly what Dean hadn't wanted to do.

He cursed under his breath and turned back to Bethany. "Do you know how to fire a gun?" he asked, hating to put her in this position but not having a choice. Bethany shook her head. Salt. She could handle the salt.

He went back for the bags and rummaged around. Sam's own bag was right where he'd dropped it, and it made Dean queasy. Sam had his gun and his flashlight on him. It'd be enough to keep him safe until Dean found him.

He grabbed the canister of salt from the bag and was about to toss it to Bethany when he saw her hands shaking badly. No way was she going to be any help that way. "Something comes at you, you throw salt from this canister at it," he said, holding up the salt for her to see. She nodded, and he made sure she saw that it was back in the bag. He transferred as much from Sam's bag as he could into the other bag without weighing it down, then slung it over his shoulder. "And stay with me."

"We're going upstairs?" she asked, horrified. "Where the people died?"

Dean stared. "Fifth floor?" he asked. "The fire?"

Bethany frowned. "I...I don't think it was a fire. The cops didn't say anything about a fire."

"The cops?" Dean asked, heading for the stairs. He tested the first two and felt them solid under his feet, although they creaked something awful. It'd have to do. "They knew what happened here?"

Reluctantly Bethany followed him up. "They talked about it. The young cops who seemed more prone to gossip. They...they said it was beautiful here," she said quietly. "Lots of nice people, famous people. It seemed nice."

"They knew why it got shut down?" Dean asked, still testing every step as he went. While the carpet gave under his boot, the stair itself didn't. Even if it was creaky as hell.

Not that that would've stopped him; a flash flood rushing down from the second floor wouldn't have stopped him from getting up there if it meant finding Sam.

"Yeah. They said it was just awful."

'It' could be a lot of things. Fire, the flash flood Dean had just imagined, to name a few. "What happened?" he asked, making it to the second balcony. He held a hand back to Bethany, moving his flashlight and gun left and right down the hallways. Nothing but dark, empty halls with closed doors. He gestured for Bethany to come up. "Did they see the fire?"

"They didn't say anything about a fire," she said. "They said that there was-"

When Bethany stopped abruptly, Dean turned back to the right to see what had caught her attention. She was staring down the hallway he'd just looked down, eyes wide and scared.

At the end of the hallway, back-lit by a faded light from the stairwell, stood the figure of a man. Dean couldn't see his face or anything about him.

The only thing Dean could see was the large axe hanging in his right hand. Something dripped slowly from the tip of the axe to the floor.

"Blood," Bethany whispered, terrified. "They said there was blood."


	4. Chapter 4: The Unwielding Terror

_Down, down. Down, down. The star is screaming.  
Beneath the lies. Lie, lie. Tschay, tschay, tschay.  
Careful, careful, careful with that axe, Eugene.  
The stars are screaming loud._

_-Pink Floyd, "Careful With That Axe Eugene" (1995)_

A high-pitched scream came up from behind them, and Dean whipped around, gun at the ready. The hallway was empty, no light anywhere nearby. As fast as he could Dean turned back around, gun up and ready to deal with the man at the end of the hall.

Who was no longer there. But the light, the light that shouldn't have been on after all these years, was still there; a single bulb coming from the direction of the emergency stairwell. The hotel would've been cut off from power years ago.

Dean didn't even have enough words in his vocab to describe how wrong the situation was. Beside him, Bethany was shaking, eyes still locked on where the man had been. "H-He...he flickered and disappeared," she choked out. "Oh god, he's gonna come back, isn't he? He's a ghost, isn't he?"

Probably _the_ ghost they were looking for. Considering they'd been thinking about Gina last, and had no names or anything to go on, Dean was more than disturbed. Add in the fact that Sam was missing, with some psycho ghost on the loose with an _axe_-

They were more than screwed, they were fucked.

Blood. The frickin' cops who _knew_ what had really happened. Dean turned to her, ready to ask again, except something made him stop. "Shh," he told her, then looked over the railing. Nothing caught his eye, but the sound came back again. _Tap_. _Tap_. Like the sound Dean's footsteps had made when he'd walked across the floor.

_Tap_. _Tap_. _Tap_.

Another scream resounded through the hotel, leaving the hairs on the back of Dean's neck standing on end. He had no clue where the sound had come from; it echoed throughout the lobby.

Then suddenly, it was cut off. The ensuing silence was enough to leave Dean on edge.

_Tap_. _Tap_. _Tap_.

Then, the tapping changed to another sound. _Creak_. _Creak_.

The sound of the stairs. Dean whipped his flashlight over towards them, and still saw nothing. No one was walking up the stairs.

But they were. And they were getting closer.

Bethany, who'd remained silent up until this point, turned to get up in Dean's face. "We need to go," she said desperately, eyes pinned to the invisible walker on the stairs. "We need to go, now, please!"

"No kidding," Dean mumbled. He wouldn't be a damn bit of good to Sam if he wound up getting slaughtered by whatever the hell spirit it was who was doing its best Jack Nicholson impression.

Which, by the way, not cool. A guy with an _axe._ Jesus H. Christ.

"Go," Dean ordered. The only place with a light was outside the door of the emergency staircase, and considering the elevator was out of commission, it was time to get off the second floor. He ran for the stairs, saw Bethany stumble behind him at first but then quickly matched his speed. The light was getting closer, and the bag was banging against his shoulder blade, and behind him, all he could hear was the _creak_, _creak_ getting louder and louder.

As they neared the door, however, he felt Bethany hesitate. "Go!" Dean said, or meant to say, but it came out as a hoarse shout. Not that it mattered: the sonuvabitch knew right where they were. Dean fumbled with the handle with one hand while managing to keep hold of his flashlight _and _his gun with the other, then all but fell through the door when he got it open. It slammed shut behind him, and then there was nothing but their panting breaths and silence.

"Fuck," Dean whispered, looking around. No lightbulbs inside the stairwell, and if they were, they wouldn't be on, like the one on the other side of the door. He wasn't going to sit and think about the impossibility of it, or how there shouldn't be any power working, and god, that was a hell of a lightbulb to last all these years.

Beyond his thundering pulse, Dean could still hear the echoes of the creaking in his ears. The door had no window to see through: just wood. No telling if the guy with the axe had come back or was standing on the other side.

Either way, it was time to move.

Stairs led up and down, and Dean really had no clue which way was better. Up meant the third through fifth floors, and the hunter part of him yearned to get up to the fifth floor and figure out just what the hell was going on. All of this had to do with that floor, Dean was sure of it.

The other part of him, the brother and very human part of him, was desperate to find Sam and get them all out of the fun house. Sam could very well be on the fifth floor.

Or Sam could be trapped in the basement, far away from Dean if Dean decided to travel to the top floor.

"A-Are we...what do we do now? He's coming, you know that right?"

_Very well aware, thank you_, Dean wanted to snap at her, but it wasn't her fault, and snapping wasn't going to do a lick of good. "C'mon," he said, heading down. "We've got to see if we can find the basement."

"_Basement_? Do you _watch_ any horror films? That's where nothing ever goes right, and people die!"

Dean shot her a look as they hurried down the stairs. Bethany managed a weak glare back. "I've watched horror films," she continued. "And you know what? I don't want to be that woman that always stands and screams and screams until she gets kidnapped or killed."

"Good," Dean said, stopping at the bottom. No stairs to the basement. Of course. "Because anyone dying isn't in the plans."

"So...the plans are...?"

"Find my brother," Dean said, making sure his gun was loaded. Salt rounds wouldn't kill whatever the hell it was, but it'd sure make it go away in a hurry. "And then get the fuck out of dodge. Now back away from the door."

Bethany quickly did as she was told, then as a second thought moved up close to Dean. He spared her an incredulous glance, but she gazed back with her chin held high, daring him to say anything. He shook his head but let her be. Truthfully, having her right there would make things easier. As a civilian, she hadn't made his life more difficult than it could've been yet. Plus, it meant he didn't have to worry about pulling her out of harm's way, which, considering the way the night was going, was bound to happen at some point.

Slowly he grasped the handle on the door, testing the warmth. Not frozen, but then again, with a nastier spirit, things didn't get colder. And Dean was pretty sure they were dealing with a nasty-ass spirit.

As fast as he could Dean ripped the door open and aimed his gun out. Two doors greeted him, one on each side, both closed. The hallway ahead of him stretched out for a ways, and it ended out into the lobby, near the stairs. No one was there. Not a sound reached his ears.

With sure steps he moved into the hallway. "Check the door," he instructed Bethany, reaching for the one on the left. It was a swivel door with a small, round window near the top, and he could faintly make out counters and cupboards inside. It gave easily under the pressure of his hand.

"Locked," Bethany told him. Dean turned and found a solid wood door with an ornate looking handle. OFF CE – E PLO EES NLY ran across the top in tarnished, gold letters. A few of the letters had obviously fallen away, leaving it more desolate then before. Still, Dean committed the room to memory and turned back to the room they could get into.

He edged his way inside the swivel door as carefully as he could. Sure enough, inside was the kitchen. Once upon a time, he was sure it had been state of the art and pristine. Now, though, it looked like a trashy diner gone wrong. The formica on the counter-tops was peeling off, revealing grime and mold beneath. Black spots dotted the walls above the sinks and from behind the large refrigerators. Dust and cobwebs hung everywhere.

"Ew," Bethany whispered succinctly. Gross as it was, it was still in much better condition than it should've been. The floor tiles were still all in place, the paint was barely chipped, and it would only take a good washing or two to get the kitchen up and operational again.

This didn't look at all like a place that had been abandoned for over fifty years. Dean fought the urge to shift uneasily, instead forcing himself to focus. This entire place was just messed up. The sooner they found Sam, the better. Dean could really use his brother's out-of-the-box thinking right about then.

Dean's cell phone rang suddenly and loudly in the silence. Bethany shrieked and flew away from him, her hands coming up in a flimsy attempt at karate. Dean slowly raised an eyebrow at her in askance. "Sorry," she apologized, her cheeks turning red. She quickly returned to his side, fingers twisting in front of her like a chastised child.

Despite everything that was going wrong, Dean found his mouth twitching into a grin. "Should've let you go Mr. Miyagi on Jack Nicholson up there," he said while digging his phone out. _Sam_ shone on the caller screen, and Dean instantly flipped the phone open. "Sam? You okay?"

"_Yeah, I think so,"_ Sam said. His voice seemed distant, echoed, but he sounded coherent. _"Sorry, not a lot of cell reception down here."_

"Basement?" Dean asked.

"_I think so. I just remember the sensation of falling and then...wham."_

Dean didn't like the sound of wham. "You hit your head?"

The pause was telling enough. _"Are you and Bethany okay?"_ Sam asked instead, neatly side-stepping the question. Dean pinched his lips and added _another_ thing they were going to talk about after getting out. He hated the new 'I'm fine don't worry about me I've done enough' thing Sam had going for him ever since they'd joined back up. Like he didn't want Dean to worry, or worse, he thought Dean might not worry.

"Yeah, we're okay, now that we got away from whatever the hell he was," Dean said.

"_He? What happened?"_

"Guy with a penchant for an axe and scaring the shit out of people," he said, scanning the room with his light. Off in the corner was a small hole in the wall with a wooden door. Dumbwaiter. Beside it was a much bigger door, fit for humans to walk through. Maybe it led to the basement. "Keep your eyes peeled."

"_Was that Bethany screaming then? I heard two screams and then-"_

Suddenly the room's temperature dropped. "Wait," Dean said, and Sam stopped talking. Bethany inched closer, shivering.

"_What's going on? Dean?"_

"Cold," was all Dean said. Sam's sharp inhale was the last thing he heard from his brother. Dean quickly side-stepped in front of Bethany with one turn, scanning the door. Nothing. But, considering their ghost, that didn't mean squat.

A prickling at the back of his neck was all the warning he got before cold air brushed past his phone-less ear. _**He's coming,**_ he heard whispered in a frightened, very female voice. When he whipped his head around, he saw nothing.

"What was that?" Bethany whispered, in serious danger of possibly ripping his skirt with her tight grip.

"We're leaving," Dean told her. "Sam, we're headed down, and we might have something on our asses."

"_You're covered, just get down here."_

Dean shut his cell phone and tossed it into his pocket, already reaching for Bethany, only to find her hightailing it towards the door on the opposite side of the kitchen. He followed after and reached past her for the door. It stuck a little but finally opened after a good, hard tug. He grabbed the flashlight he'd tucked under his arm, then watched as the kitchen's main door swung open, hard and fast. "Go!" he yelled, and Bethany needed no further encouragement; she took off down the stairs.

Dean grabbed his gun and aimed towards the door, lips curled into a snarl. He sounded a shot off through the doorway, then to the left and right of it. There was a howl of rage that left Dean fighting off a shudder, but nothing materialized. Moments later the ovens near the door pulled away from the wall, flying towards Dean.

He darted through the door and slammed the door shut behind him, then hurried down the stairs. Salt didn't do shit, only pissed it off. Great.

The door at the bottom was open, and Bethany was anxiously bouncing and waiting. "Hurry!" she yelled. Dean cleared the bottom door just as the wooden door above began splintering. The heavy _thud_ against the door made it clear that someone was chopping through. Axe-Man clearly knew his weapon.

As fast as he could Dean flew after Bethany into the basement, all while slamming the door shut. The sound of the lock being thrown was loud in the ensuing silence, and slowly Dean began backing away, reaching for the bag on his shoulder. Iron rounds, maybe. Smaller gun, easier to load. A little more hardcore, but this sonuvabitch wasn't stopping.

The prickling feeling was back, a sure sign that he was being watched. Before he could turn around he was being grabbed and pulled backward, Bethany gasping in surprise beside him.


	5. Chapter 5: The Unkept Darkness

___Hey, daddy-o  
I don't wanna go down to the basement  
There's somethin' down there  
I don't wanna go_

___-The Ramones, "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" (1976)_

He fell back against a solid chest, one with a big little brother attached to it. "You trying to freak me out further?" Dean asked, glaring at him. "Because I think Mr. Axe-Hard-On up there's doing a fine enough job of that as it is."

"Bethany, I need you to find the salt; it's in the bag somewhere. It banishes ghosts for a little bit and keeps us safe from them," Sam said, completely ignoring Dean. "Did you get a chance to lay down any upstairs?"

"Won't do you any good," Dean said. "I shot it full of rock salt and the damn thing just kept coming."

Sam frowned. Bethany's eyes got even wider. "Wait, what? No! Salt makes them go away; I liked that. I liked that a lot: salt's the answer and the peace-bringer and all that."

"Generally," Dean specified. "Generally, yeah, it works. But not on this sonuvabitch. Which means-"

He broke himself off and glanced at Sam. Sam looked just as unenthusiastic as he did. "Poltergeist?" Sam finally said.

"I think so," Dean admitted.

Before either of them could further say anything Bethany stepped forward. "I think I've been fairly patient thus far," she said, trying to look them both in the eye as firmly as she could. "So, in light of recent events, I feel like I'm entitled to ask a question. What's the difference?"

Sam glanced over at Dean. Dean merely shrugged. She _had _asked. "A spirit is a run of the mill ghost," Sam said, turning back to Bethany. "You see them as pale humans who can disappear in an instant. A poltergeist is a lot nastier; no human form necessary. They just cause chaos, throw things, generally act pretty violently."

"So...the one in the hotel is a poltergeist?"

"Plus a spirit," Dean said. "That cold feeling upstairs? Poltergeists generally don't do that. That's a spirit. And that voice I heard was definitely a woman. She gave me the warning to get the hell out of there before the guy with the axe showed up."

Sam shook his head, bewildered. "Dean, what the hell is going on here? We've got a spirit _and_ a poltergeist? What really happened here?"

"I don't know," Dean started, then paused, turning towards Bethany. "But I know how we can find out. Bethany, the cops: did they say anything else?"

Sam whipped his head towards her. "The cops...?"

"They talked about what happened. Sort of," Bethany explained, eyes darting nervously towards the door. "Is this seriously a good time for a story?"

Dean set the bag down on the concrete floor and started digging around for the iron rounds. "Perfect time. The faster Sam and I know what's going on, the better." He glanced around the basement. There were a multitude of things scattered around, everything from mattresses to wooden cabinets, ripped-out sinks to rotted sofas. This looked like what the rest of the hotel should look like, and the fact that it was here, where no prying eyes usually could see, just left something cold in Dean's gut. Everything still felt like a secret, like the bad spot of the town that couldn't be talked about.

His eyes finally caught on the furnace in the center of the main room. "See if you can't find something long and iron for her to swing," he told Sam, nodding towards the furnace. Poker, iron bar, tons of things that went with furnaces that were long, sharp, and generally made of ghost repellent. "You checked any of these other rooms?" he added as an afterthought.

Sam shook his head. "Called you as soon as I came to." He stopped, wincing, as if he hadn't wanted to admit that. Dean glared at him but said nothing. He'd figured as much. Sam quickly moved away to the furnace, but if he thought Dean was going to forget about that tidbit, he had another thing coming.

"Bethany, the cops," Dean prompted.

Bethany took a deep breath. "They said it was such a shame, that the people had seemed like such nice couples. All that...that youth and happiness just ended for no reason."

She paused, eyes sweeping the room before landing on the door again. Dean snagged another gun and loaded the iron round magazine with a loud click, making her look back at him. "They used words like 'murder' and 'blood' and 'brutality'." She glanced around but refocused back on Dean a moment later.

"They mentioned that three people had died. The fourth couldn't be found. I think they thought the missing guy was the murderer."

"Someone was dead?" Sam asked, coming back around. He had a bundle of long, iron rods in his arms, more than enough to fortify them.

"Three people," Bethany said. "The cops said that the four people in the fifth floor had left three bloody corpses and one had vanished."

Dean glanced up at his brother, who had the same expression on his face. Violent, bloody ends. Couples of four people meant two women, two men. Their woman ghost was one of the victims, and Dean would've bet money that all four of them, not just three, had died in the hotel that day.

"Great," Dean said, standing with the guns in his hand. He switched out Sam's gun for one with iron rounds, then started packing the bag up again. "We've got a psychotic murderer who got so freakin' violent he managed to turn himself into a poltergeist in the afterlife. And then-"

"And then three possible other spirits," Sam finished with a sigh. "Did they mention any names, Bethany?"

Bethany was gazing around again, looking more uneasy by the minute. She shivered, then shook her head. "Just the blood. They remembered the blood."

Yeah, Dean would've bet that blood like that would be remembered some fifty years later. No wonder there was no record of this in the town. The murder rate for Dennis had to be slim to nothing. To have such a blight on their town, to have such blood shed in their finest establishment... Dean wouldn't have talked about it either. In light of the real story, the journalists in the 60's had actually done the best they could do.

That was the problem with the truth, though. It always came out, and when it did, it generally always bit you in the ass. God knew Dean had learned that lesson the hard way.

"Now what do we do?" Sam asked. "How the hell do we handle this? We have no names, no bodies to burn-"

"Not true," Dean said. "I'm betting that there's still one body left in here."

Bethany, who'd been in the process of gingerly reaching for an iron poker from Sam's pile, stopped, blanching. "Wait, you think the other guy died, too? You think all four of them died?"

"He'd have to be dead," Dean said. "Sure, it could be the one of the three murdered, but if it was one of the murdered, then they can't be the ones swinging an axe at us, can they?" No, their murderer had somehow died and remained hidden in the hotel. Probably what had made him so pissed off all these years later, too. Maybe one of the women had fought back, or the other guy had.

Either way, he hadn't left the hotel. And now two kids were dead because of it, and the three of them were trapped with the maniac.

Sam was in the process of grabbing a few of the iron rods when the emergency lights suddenly went on. Everyone froze, watching the small, red lights that ran the walls of the room and led down the multiple hallways that diverged off from the main room. A few flickered and went out, but for the most part the room was bathed in a red, eerie glow.

"You find the power switch, Sammy?" Dean asked hopefully, closing the bag and slinging it back over his shoulder.

"Not really," Sam said, his voice wary. He moved over towards the stairwell quickly, laying the iron rods down at the base of the door. As crazy and strong as the poltergeist was, Dean highly doubted it'd make it through the iron. You didn't fuck with iron.

Bethany began wrenching her hands again. "Does the elevator work?" she asked. She still looked pretty damn freaked, if her shaking hands and trembling voice were anything to go on. But she wasn't breaking down and screaming, and she wasn't two seconds away from ripping a hole in her skirt anymore, so Dean would take the few good points they had and roll with 'em.

Sam shook his head. "I barely got the doors open; the floor of the elevator car was twisted, so it made pushing the doors open a little bit easier, or else I'd still be locked in there."

Not an image Dean had wanted, thank you. "Time to explore, kids," he said. Making sure the safety was off, Dean checked the flashlight again. Still on; thank you Energizer. "I don't have to tell everyone to stay together, do I?"

Sam rolled his eyes, and it was such a Sam thing to do that Dean breathed a little easier. "Not really, no. But there has to be another way out of here besides the elevator and the kitchen. There had to have been another access point at some time or another. We just have to find it."

Plenty of halls to go wandering through. And with the lights having suddenly turned on, Dean was pretty certain they weren't wandering alone. "Keep your eyes peeled," he said. "You feel anything weird, say something. No point whispering; they know we're here." They being, so far, a woman spirit and a poltergeist. That still left two spirits unaccounted for.

Slowly the small group edged towards the first hall. Dean slid forward along the wall and edged himself forward until he could peek around the edge. The hall was empty, only a few of the emergency lights on. One door was off on the left side, closed. After letting Sam know what he was doing, Dean made his way down the hallway. The handle of the door felt cool to the touch, but the basement itself was colder than the upstairs. With a flick of his wrist he popped it open and swung his gun up.

Empty. A storage closet of some type, complete with brooms and mops. Dean let out the breath he'd been holding and turned to call back, "Nothing," to Sam.

The pale, bloody face of a woman right in front of him sent him flying back to the wall, gun raised. "Dean!" Sam yelled, coming around the corner, his own gun high. The woman quickly winked out of existence.

"Was that her?" Sam asked. "The woman from upstairs?"

Dean shrugged helplessly. "Didn't see her; if she spoke I'd know, but otherwise, no. I don't know."

"We need to go," Bethany said suddenly from the main room. She looked anxious, her eyes darting towards the door they'd come from. "We need to go now. I mean it. I've got a bad feeling."

"Lot of that going around," Dean muttered but pushed himself forward. Nothing was rattling the door, but if there was another way into the basement, Dean had no doubts that their axe lover would find it first. He cursed himself for getting so panicked about one measly little room. God, Bethany had more sense at the moment than he did.

"Next hall," Dean said tersely, stepping back out into the main room. "Where are they?"

"Just these two," Sam said, nodding to the ones in the corners of the room. One was directly ahead, and one was diagonal from the kitchen stairwell. Both were lit with lights, and both had only one door down the hall, from the looks of it.

Bethany was trying to avoid most of the items scattered about the basement, her arms wrapped around herself. "God I just want to go home," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else. "I want to...I have to find the watch. I have to, I...I need to find Thomas' watch, I can't leave without it, I can't do it, but oh god, I have to go, he's going to kill me-"

Well, Dean had to give her kudos for falling apart now as opposed to earlier. Or later. "Bethany, it's gonna be okay," Dean said as reassuringly as he could. When it didn't look like she was listening, he reached out to squeeze her shoulder. "We'll get you out, and then if we don't find his watch, Sam and I'll get it for you, all right? I swear, we'll get you out of-"

The iron-guarded door nearly swung open. Bethany jerked away before Dean could touch her, already halfway across the basement. "Bethany, no!" Sam shouted, hurrying after her. Dean cursed low and hard, gun aimed towards the door. If they split up, then they were screwed.

Then again, if that psycho could get through iron, then they were screwed. The only thing they could do then would be to get their poltergeist kit out, the one with the herbs and the incantation cards.

The one currently at the bottom of the Impala's trunk.

The door thumped again, hard and loud. Again, and again, and again. The handle rattled loud and viciously, twisting this way and that to try and get it to open. Dean swallowed hard and kept his gun trained on the door. The noise was filling up his entire skull, and he was having a hard time separating the pounding on the door from the pounding of his heart. Any minute now, he was going to start using the axe, and Dean was going to find out whether or not his iron rounds were worth a damn.

Suddenly all the noise stopped, and the door stopped bending inwards. Dean froze for half a second, tempted to turn and look to see if the maniac had gotten in through the other stairwell. And considering he couldn't hear Sam or Bethany anymore, the urge to turn and check was getting stronger.

Then, slowly, the hinge pins at the top of the door began to turn. "Oh, you sonuva_bitch_," Dean said, backing away fast. God, weren't those things supposed to be iron, too?

The presence at his back this time was pure Sam, and he relaxed slightly, knowing he had back-up. "We found the other stairs," Sam said. "We have to go, now."

"Where?" Dean asked, even as he backed away. The first hinge popped, and the pin fell to the ground with a clatter. The middle hinge began turning even faster. Sam was right, they couldn't stay.

"Anywhere but here," Sam said, grabbing Dean's arm and tugging. "Just-"

Suddenly the woman ghost was back, right in front of the door. Dean raised his gun on instinct, but she didn't move towards him. _**Go**_, she said, terror permanently etched into her face. _**Go, he's coming**_.

The middle hinge popped out, and the last one began spinning. "Dean, _now_!" Sam yelled, and Dean caught Sam's arm as he turned. They ran practically hand in hand through the basement's maze of forsaken items. The emergency lights began to flicker, faster and faster, until they were was almost like strobe lights.

"Hurry!" Bethany's voice shouted from ahead, and then they were turning the corner and she was there by an open door, gesturing them onward. The emergency lights suddenly began to blow out, shattering glass across the room. Bethany shrieked and ducked as the one above her gave.

And even above the shattering glass, even above Sam's shout and Bethany's fear and Dean's own racing heart, he swore he could still hear the last pin hitting the ground.

They raced through the stairwell door and Bethany spun against it, shutting it hard. "Go!" Sam yelled, and Dean raced ahead, not even bothering to grab his gun out.

"Where?" Bethany yelled back, pausing by the first floor. "Where do we-"

"Just _go_," Dean said, continuing to race up the stairs, because this had to end. They couldn't keep letting the psychotic dick race and pull them around. If they had any chance of getting out of there alive, they were going to have to really find out what had happened to the four people staying on the fifth floor.

Sam managed to get ahead of him somehow, which didn't surprise Dean: the kid had legs like a racehorse. What did surprise him was that he saw the hole before Sam did. "Sammy!" he yelled, barely managing to grab the back of Sam's coat and hauling him back before he could fall through. They all stared at the gaping hole that had taken out most of the stairs between them and the third floor door. Dean couldn't force himself to move, stunned and panting for air.

It only made the scream that much worse. It reverberated up through the stairwell, echoing in their tower made of metal stairs and narrow spaces. Bethany covered her ears against it as the woman's scream of terror continued on and on.

It cut off suddenly, just as quickly as it had started, and Dean didn't realize he'd been wincing against it until he lowered his shoulders. Sam looked pale beside him, staring down through the center of the stairs towards the basement floor. "God," he whispered, and he looked like he had when Lucifer had begun rising. That was a look Dean could've gone his entire life without ever seeing again.

"How long do your batteries last?" Bethany finally spoke, and it was only then that Dean realized he had the only flashlight between the three of them. Somehow, he'd managed to hang onto it. No wonder he'd seen the stairs before Sam had: his brother had simply been heading up blind. He shuddered, thinking of Sam tumbling through the hole, back down a floor. Probably would've gone through the other stairs and straight back to the basement.

"Long enough; we put new ones in before we came," Dean said, and Bethany nodded, looking faint. She looked better now than she had before; maybe the freak out had done her some good. "We need to keep moving."

"Where?" Sam asked. He nodded towards the stairs. "Getting up to the fifth floor this way isn't going to happen. And the elevator's not working."

Dean glanced over at Bethany. Her eyes widened when she realized what he was getting at. "There's...there's another stairwell," she said softly. "It's on the other side of the hotel, though."

The other side of the big, wide, hotel. The side where the psycho was.

"All we've got," Dean said, just as unhappy about it as they were. "We've gotta get up to that floor. We need to know what we're dealing with, and I'm betting Mr. Axe-a-Lot's trying to keep us from getting up there."

It was just a matter of getting there without getting killed.


	6. Chapter 6: The Unevaded Repeat

___The very stains and fractures on the wall,  
Assuming features solemn and terrific,  
Hinted some tragedy of that old hall,  
Locked up in hieroglyphic._

_O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear;_  
_A sense of mystery the spirit daunted;_  
_And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,_  
_The place is haunted._

_-Thomas Hood, "The Haunted House" (1844)_

"Okay, let's move," Dean said, moving back down the stairs, flashlight at the ready. It was unnerving how dark it was in the stairwell: he'd really taken for granted how much those creepy red lights in the basement had helped.

Sam followed behind after making sure Bethany was between them. "We get up there, we find what we need, we get out. Easy plan, right?"

Dean gave him a look. "Now who's saying shit that's gonna get us in trouble?"

Surprisingly, Sam grinned. "It's all gonna go to hell anyways, remember?"

With a snort Dean smirked back. "Bitch."

"Jerk," Sam replied after a long pause. When Dean glanced back at him, Sam looked a little in awe. After a moment, Dean realized why. When the hell had they last actually said that? It'd been their standard since they were kids. A way of saying the three most important words you could say to anyone. Didn't matter whether it was _I love you _or _watch your back _or _I've got you_. The Winchester had always been good at packing a lot of things into one small place, and words weren't an exception.

So it kind of really sucked that Sam actually looked surprised, honored, _relieved_ to hear what had once been commonplace.

"What happens when we know the truth?" Bethany asked, breaking into his thoughts. "How does that help?"

Dean touched the handle, once again testing the temperature. Regular cool, not frozen. "Spirits are generally here for a reason," he said. "They stay behind because they're stuck or because they've got unfinished business."

"They want to tell someone they love them, they want someone to know who their killer was," Sam said, picking up the explanation. Sam had always been better at talking with people than Dean had. "Things like that. There's a reason all of these spirits are still here."

"Including the guy with the axe?" Bethany asked, and Dean had to grin at her succinct way of cramming their situation into six words.

"Including the nut, yeah," Dean said. He took hold of the handle and wrenched the door open, gun at the ready. The hallway was empty and dark, extending out ahead of him before branching out to the left. Right back to where they'd started. "We just have to find what it is that's tying him here. Once we do that, we can make him move on to a place where people know how to wield blades a lot better than he does. Trust me."

Even as the last words had dropped from his lips, he could feel Sam right beside him. Just brushing, barely really felt. Nothing in Dean's tone had given anything away. Except Dean knew why he was there.

God he was glad Sam was back.

"So that's why we have to know," Bethany said, as if still piecing it together. "The truth."

"That, and I just really want to know what the fuck went down here," Dean admitted. "Curiosity killed the cat and all that."

"Yeah, I'd rather not put 'curiosity' and 'kill' in the same sentence when we're talking about this case, if we could," Sam muttered.

"Go ahead Tinkerbell, think happy thoughts," Dean muttered back. "See if you can float up to the fifth floor."

The floor ahead of them creaked. All three froze, Dean and Sam both swinging their guns forward. When nothing else happened, they slowly began to breathe again. "Did we...close the door behind us?" Sam asked after a moment. Dean met his gaze for a split second, then quickly turned around. Only Bethany stood in the hallway, and the door was shut tight.

"Yeah, we did," Dean said. "We must've left the iron on, honey."

"You two are really strange," Bethany finally said.

"Stranger than a guy with an axe chasing after you in a haunted hotel?" Dean asked sarcastically.

Bethany pursed her lips. "I didn't say it was a bad strange. It's actually sort of...nice. In a strange way."

"Clear," Sam called softly from ahead. "I don't see the stairwell."

"It's down at the end," Dean replied, moving to catch up with him. "You should see a light-"

He stopped. The hall was empty, as Sam had said. From ahead, Dean could just make out the gold railing of the staircase from the lobby. Without the flashlight, he couldn't see anything.

The end of the hallway was swallowed up in black, no light to be seen. Dean stared.

"Think they'd have anything behind the counter?" Sam was asking. "Like a check-in book or something? Anything with a name?"

"There wasn't anything back there from when I looked," Bethany said. "Just empty space." She turned the corner and frowned, staring at the opposite end of the hall. "Where's the light?" she asked.

"What light?" Sam asked, frowning.

"Move," was all Dean said. "And move silently. You hear anything weird coming from the lobby, tell me."

He had a feeling they were on their own, as far as the guy with the axe was concerned. Against all of Dean's usual feelings regarding spirits, he had to admit that the woman hadn't been a danger. In fact, he was betting that it'd been her that had kept the psycho poltergeist away for so long. It was almost like she'd been...protecting them. And he had a feeling that her screams were a result of that.

Which meant if the poltergeist could do that to a _spirit_...

They were halfway down the hall, just far enough in that the lobby was opening up on their right, when they heard the sounds.

_Tap_.

_Tap_.

_Tap_.

"Oh god, not again," Bethany murmured. "What does he _want_?"

Them dead? The hotel to himself? A puppy for Christmas? Because if that was the way he was going about it, Santa wasn't giving him anything except coal for his stocking.

Out of instinct Dean shone his light down on the lobby. Nothing came to mind, but the _tap_, _tap_, _tap_, still continued.

He was there. And any minute now, he was going to come up the stairs.

"Move," Dean repeated, and this time the three of them moved fast. Past the main staircase and down the other hall, and finally to the stairwell door. Sam grabbed the handle and swung it open.

Or tried to. The door stuck fast, refusing to budge. "You're kidding me," Sam said incredulously, glancing over his shoulder as if to gage where the spirit was. Dean spun around, flashlight aimed back down the hall. Nothing.

But in the silence, there was no mistaking the _creak_.

_Creak_.

_Creak_.

"That's him on the stairs," Dean stage-whispered. "Sam, the door-"

"It's locked," Sam said helplessly. He rammed his shoulder into it, but it wouldn't budge. "The handle gives and the latch falls back in, but the door won't open. He's got it locked down."

There were only two doors between them and the main staircase, and one of them was only a few feet away. Without waiting Dean kicked the door in, finding nothing satisfying about the way it flew inward. "Sammy, c'mon!" he yelled, darting inside. Bethany hurried after Dean, and two seconds later Sam was inside. The door was slammed shut, and Dean frantically looked around the room. An average hotel room, bed still completely made up and everything. Again, it was only a level of dust that separated it from being something clean and new.

They were going to Bobby's after this. If Dean so much as saw a sign for a hotel after this, it'd be too soon.

"The bed," Sam said, reaching to pull the mattress off. The frame looked old and made of metal, and the chance of it being iron was slim to none.

But it was heavy and it'd keep the door from getting opened. For awhile, at any rate. And then they were going to find out if iron worked at all. Though if it did work, then how the hell had the guy gotten through the iron bars in the basement?

...Or had he just back-tracked to the main lobby?

Between the two of them they managed to get the frame up and propped against the door. There were windows on the opposite side of the room that viewed out onto the town, and if Dean pressed himself against them hard enough, he could just make out the hood of his car below him. Now if they could just get to her.

"What do we do?" Bethany asked, eyes locked on the barricaded door. "He's going to get through!"

Sam was already grabbing one of the guns from the bag without iron rounds and aiming it at the window. One, two, three shots later, and the windows didn't even give. Sam stared in shock, checking to see if the chambers were loaded. "Three bullets missing?" Dean asked a moment later.

Sam nodded. "They fired. Just...didn't do any good."

Great. Sitting ducks, in other words. Frankly, Bethany's 'what do we do' was starting to become the most important question of the day, because Dean was all out of ideas.

There was a sharp thud at the door. All three of them backed away, and Dean could only watch as the bed frame jerked as the door was pushed. No, not pushed.

Chopped. The door was being chopped.

The blade of the axe cut through, and though it was only a small tip, Dean could see that it was stained with dark blood and still dripping. The axe chopped and chopped away, and soon there was a hole enough for a hand to stick through. Blood from the axe stained the edge of the hole, with more blood sliding down the wood.

Slowly Dean raised his gun, setting the bag down beside him. Time to see if it worked. He could hear Sam pulling the safety off of his gun from beside him, and Dean hoped to God that if one iron round didn't cut it, then maybe two would.

And if they didn't, then Dean really hoped that he could get in front of Sam before the ghost got to his brother. He'd already let Sam down once: he wasn't doing it again.

The axe stopped chopping, and the silence was almost worse than the rhythmic blade slicing through the wood. The wood around the hole shifted slightly, like something was brushing against it, and the handle of the door began to turn.

Bastard had his hand in: that was good enough. Dean fired at the hole, watching the bullet sail through like it had hit nothing.

But the howl of rage told him that he'd hit his mark.

Then, suddenly, he was falling. Bethany screamed and Sam yelled, and Dean didn't understand where the floor had gone.

Then everything went black.


	7. Chapter 7: The Ungentle History

___Next died the Lady who yon Hall possessed;  
And here they brought her noble bones to rest.  
In Town she dwelt:- forsaken stood the Hall:  
Worms ate the floors. the tapestry fled the wall._

___-George Crabbe, "The Lady of the Manor" (1819, year disputed)_

Things filtered in by pieces. The small glow that kept the darkness at bay was the first, as soon as he managed to pry his eyes open. The expansive hole above him that the glow gently illuminated. The rustling of papers off in the...somewhere. Somewhere distant but close.

And, oh yeah. The pain that was filtering through his system, one tiny nerve ending at a time. He let loose a helpless groan, and the rustling stopped. He shut his eyes tight and focused on the pain. It wasn't really easy.

The nausea helped with that, in the worst way possible of course.

"...n? Dean? You back with me?"

"Loud and clear," Dean managed, and from somewhere above him, he could hear Sam's sigh of relief. "What happened?"

"You blew him away, that's what happened," Bethany said, somewhere off to his left. "We haven't heard a thing in ten minutes."

"Not even from you," Sam said quietly, and Dean did get his eyes open again at that. Sam looked pretty freaked but was desperately trying to hide it. Failing miserably, but trying. "Jesus Dean, you...there was this _sound_ when you hit the floor-"

"And speaking of, why the hell _did_ I hit the floor?" Dean asked, pushing himself up. The glow and encroaching blackness spun alarmingly, and Dean shut his eyes tight. A hand at his back kept him grounded, long enough for the nausea and the dizziness to abate. "The fuck happened?"

"The floor gave," Sam told him. "Rotted through."

If there was a piece of irony to be found in this entire mess, that was it. "Guess there are some rotted floors, huh?" he said, blinking his eyes open again and taking a good look around this time.

The flashlight was set up on top of an old oak desk, the light beam hitting what little was left of the ceiling and thus spreading the light out over the room. The desk, the chair behind it, and the floor were all covered in dust, wood, and metal bits from the broken ceiling. Most of the debris looked like it was now piled in a corner. Probably Sam's doing.

"I think we're in that office we passed," Bethany said, answering his next question. "The employees only one across from the kitchen?"

The locked door. Dean glanced over at the door, feeling a small amount of satisfaction when he found the key in the lock. The very iron key in the lock. If the iron round had actually hurt the sonuvabitch, then he couldn't get in.

Not that way, at any rate. There was a hole above them he could in through, but seemed like the iron had done the trick.

For now.

"I think we left the door to the stairwell open down here," Dean said, moving to stand up. Sam was a solid rock beside him, an anchor when Dean's legs felt like water. As soon as Dean was up Sam was guiding him over to the chair that Bethany was dusting off, to the best of her abilities. It still looked pretty damn dusty, though. Dean didn't even want to think about how bad it had looked before her and Sam had started cleaning.

Once Dean was seated, Sam moved back towards a stack of papers on the desk. "I've been digging through here for anything that might help, and I think I found something," he said, pulling out a book with yellowed pages. "Take a look about three days before the 13th."

Dean took a quick look at the front – a leather bound book with engraving that stated simply, 'Guests' – then moved his eyes to the page Sam was pointing at. Near the bottom of the page was perfect handwriting in which someone had written, _Mr. William Deventon and family_. Beneath that, another hand had written _Four guests: fifth floor, the Executive Suite_.

Dean frowned. "Family?" he repeated. "I thought there were two couples, suggesting adults."

"Could've been in-laws," Sam suggested with a shrug. "It's more than we had before. At least we have a name."

"We have more," Bethany said from the corner she'd been investigating. "Look."

Sam crossed the small office to see what she'd found. Dean settled for leaning across the desk. His head was killing him, and his legs still felt like they were asleep, like someone had sat on them for too long. He'd bruised his ass and tail bone, obviously. Walking was going to be a bitch.

Running was going to be even worse, but he doubted Axe-to-Grind would be willing to wait. Dammit.

"Dean."

Dean glanced up from his introspection and found Sam with a faded, torn newspaper in hand. "Main page," he said grimly. The yellowed, dusty page was ripped in most places, and very little of the actual text remained.

The headline was hard to miss, though.

Dean carefully took the paper from Sam and read. _SPECIAL EDITION: THREE BODIES FOUND IN OCEAN HOUSE_ was the bold headline, with a picture of police standing outside the Ocean House Hotel, holding spectators off. In the background, there were a few men carrying a stretcher out, the body covered. Even with the faded age of the paper, Dean could still see the sheet dark in several places due to blood. "Holy shit," he murmured.

The text was torn right through, but the article stated enough clearly. Dean set it down and, after glancing up at Sam, began to read out loud all of the available text. "'On the 12th of April, a tragedy occurred. Three of the Ocean House's guests were found, murdered, throughout the tainted hotel. Two bodies, those of Mr. William Deventon and his wife, were found in the bedroom of the Executive Suite of the hotel, while another woman was found in the basement. The hotel reports four guests having arrived in total, which leaves one guest missing in the once presumed safe, and happy, resort. Mr. Deventon's body was discovered-' ...Jesus. No wonder the place shut down." Press like that, the owners would've been lucky to have escaped Dennis with any sort of dignity or money.

"Any others?" Dean asked, setting the paper down gingerly on the desk.

Sam shook his head. "There's a few more copies, but they have even less text than that one. None of them have the full article."

"So...what, the fourth guest goes nuts, kills William and his wife and the other girl, then...bites it somehow?"

"Are you sure he didn't just...escape?" Bethany asked tentatively. "They never found his body."

"He can't be here haunting the place if he got out," Dean said. "No, whoever the guy is, he's dead, and he's still in here somewhere. Which means..."

Sam pinched his lips. "Yeah, I know."

"Wait, know what?" Bethany asked, wrapping her arms even tighter around herself. "I don't know what. What do you know?"

Dean sighed, feeling his headache growing even more with each passing minute. Of all the times for him to hit his head...

Thankfully, Sam started explaining. "In order to get rid of a ghost, we have to find their remains and burn them. Generally, the body is what's tying the spirit to a place." He glanced at Dean before continuing. "So we have to find the body."

Dean slowly nodded. No point in telling Bethany that a poltergeist rarely had a body, and that sometimes a spirit could be tied to items, too. That'd be a mood killer, and she'd just started calming down again, too.

"But the police didn't find the body," Bethany said with a frown. "So that means...oh." Her eyes widened as realization took hold. "Oh god."

"Time for a body hunt," Dean said with false cheer. "Yup."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. Probably feeling every moment of his own head injury, too. How the hell he'd been managing so far, Dean didn't know. "Think we've got any aspirin in the bag?" Dean asked softly.

Sam turned, frown deepening. "Is it that bad?" he asked, clearly worried. "God, Dean, I don't-"

"For you too, moron," Dean said, though his gentle tone belied his words. "We could both do with some."

Sam immediately dropped his hands to his side. "I'm fine," he insisted. "I'll check for you, though. We need the EMF detectors anyways."

"EMF?" Bethany repeated, before shivering. "Are you guys as cold as I am?"

Now that she'd mentioned it, it did seem colder in the room. Sam stopped digging to evaluate the temperature. "It wasn't that cold a moment ago," he said quietly. "I mean, it's been pretty cold in here ever since we got in, but-"

Dean waved at him to stop, cutting Sam off effectively. "It means we gotta move," he said. "Iron rounds don't kill 'em, just knock them out for a little bit. Time to pack it up, boys and girls, before we play another round of 'Pop Goes the Weasel'." Which Dean wasn't looking forward to. That child's rhyme and those stupid Jack-in-the-Box toys had never been his favorite as a kid. Popped up at any given time, tried to scare the shit out of you.

Plus, they'd generally been clowns, and Sam and clowns didn't mix. Actually, it had probably been one of those toys that had started the whole afraid of clowns thing. It didn't matter, though: something was always popping up out of nowhere and trying to get to them, and Dean had had about enough.

"Anything?" Dean asked, when Sam closed the bag back up. Sam glanced up from where he was kneeling and bit his lip, giving Dean his answer. Crap. "We'll get some when we get out to the car," Dean tried to say optimistically. Sure they would. And then they'd all wear tutus and go frolicking in the flowers.

"What's EMF?" Bethany asked again.

Dean really didn't have the time or the energy to explain. "Ghost detector," he said, settling for the short version. "We need to move." Which involved him standing up. Right.

And suddenly Sam was there, hand out to pull Dean up. He didn't so much as move when Dean practically climbed up and put all his weight on Sam's arm. By the time he was standing, the room was trying to spin again. His legs felt more solid, though, and the pins and needles feeling was starting to emerge. "You're awesome," Dean managed to get out when Sam started looking more concerned.

"Be nice if it were true," Sam said with a roll of his eyes. "Bethany, you stay behind me at all times, got it?"

Bethany nodded. "Dean?" Sam asked, saying so much more with one name. _Got my back? _and _I'll take front, if it's okay? _and even a _Be careful?_

Like Sam had to even ask. "I got it," he said, answering all the questions with three words. He took a hesitant step forward to test out his legs. Wobbly but still holding. Cool. By the time he made it around the desk he was almost perfectly stable. He checked for his gun and found it on the corner of the desk. Time for round god knew how many.

"Go," he said, glancing up once at the ceiling, half expecting to see a shadow of an axe. But the only thing he saw was the darkened room above him and broken beams of wood from the floor.

He turned back in time to see Sam carefully reaching for the key. With one quick move he pulled it from the lock and twisted the handle. The door swung out fast, and Bethany gasped in fear.

The hallway was empty. The kitchen's turning door was right in front of them, and no face came through the small window. Sam's shoulders dropped a full inch or two. "Ready?" he asked.

Dean's next breath came out misty, and the temperature in the room dropped even more. "Gonna have to be," Dean said, and the three quickly hurried out, shutting the door behind them. The hallway was only a little bit warmer, but even as they began to move, the temperature continued to plummet.

Sam didn't even hesitate as he had with the office door, merely grabbed the door to the stairwell and pushed it open, gun already up and ready. "Move," he ordered a minute later, and Bethany quickly ran inside, Dean following up from behind.

"Fifth floor?" Bethany said as Sam shut the door hard.

"Fifth floor," Dean agreed. "Up fast, kids." The stairwell was warmer than the spirit cold it'd been before. The sooner they moved, though, the better things could be. A total of four people dead in the hotel meant a possible four spirits. So far, they'd encountered two, which left two possibilities. Just because the woman they'd met seemed more inclined to help them, didn't mean the two unknowns would feel the same.

His legs felt odd and wrong as he moved fast, the pins and needles effect making him want to stop and shake his legs out. Instead, Dean gritted his teeth together and clenched the handrails as they climbed and climbed. His eyes watched every door they passed to the other floors, and he knew Sam was doing the same. His brother had the flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other, and he was making his way up as swiftly but as safely as he could. The kid was a hell of a hunter, and Dean realized that even though they'd been on opposite ends for the past few months, he still trusted Sam implicitly with his life. No though, no hesitation.

He wondered if that had been an unspoken question of Sam's in the office, if there'd been a _Trust me? _in the mix. If there had, Dean's answer was the same.

It was only when they reached the top floor that Sam paused. "Sammy?" Dean asked immediately.

Sam held a hand up and edged slowly towards the door. Even without the full light from the flashlight Dean could still make out the dark stains on the door, on the wall of the stairwell. Bloodstains.

When Sam turned the flashlight up to hit the door, the handprint smeared with blood was obvious. "Oh god," Bethany murmured, horrified, eyes on the blood. The still dripping blood.

Without waiting Sam pulled the EMF detector out and turned it on. The high pitched wail startled even Dean, and the lights were all on full. Sam turned it off and swallowed. "That's...bad, isn't it?" Bethany asked.

"It's not good," Dean admitted. Blood didn't drip for fifty years. That meant they had a ghost nearby, probably on the floor in the suite. Didn't make him any happier, especially with a civilian. He carefully sidestepped Bethany on the stairs and joined Sam at the top. "No point waiting," he said. "Iron rounds can't hold it off forever."

"I know," Sam said. "It's just...god. This place is wrong, Dean. I can feel it. The wrong inside of it."

No psychic powers necessary there: Dean felt it too. Something terrible and wrong had happened inside the hotel, and it had left a mark. The reporter hadn't been wrong: the hotel was tainted.

As one the brothers drew their weapons up, with Dean this time reaching for the handle. With one swift pull they yanked it open and scanned the hallway.

Dark and empty. Still, the sense of uneasiness lingered, possibly stronger than before. "Where?" was all he asked.

Sam scanned the area with the flashlight until he reached the other end of the hall. There, at the end, was a single door. The numbers on the door marked _501_. The Executive Suite.

"We need to go," Bethany said suddenly, bringing Dean's attention back to the stairwell. She'd moved down a few steps towards the landing between the fifth and fourth floors, and she was starting to look freaked out again. "I don't...oh god, I don't want to go up there. I thought I could, but I can't. He's going to be up there-"

"We're not gonna let him get you," Dean said, feeling stupid by saying so because there was no real guarantee. The poltergeist was a nasty sonuvabitch, and the likelihood of someone dying tonight was high. "I promise," he said anyways, trying to believe it.

"We're safer together," Sam added. "Bethany, if you run right now, he _will_ kill you. There's no ifs, buts, or whats about that. You need to stay with us."

Bethany didn't look convinced. "Bethany, please," Sam pleaded. Dean glanced down the hallway again and saw the door looming at the end. Bethany's growing terror was starting to affect Dean, and he could feel the goosebumps on his arm rising. The urge to run had suddenly never been stronger, and Dean desperately didn't want to go down the hallway. Whatever was in that room, whatever had happened there was the worst part of the hotel, and it screamed wrong and bad and stay away.

He forced himself to look away at Bethany, who had taken one step back up towards them. "We go in there, we see if we can find any clues about where the body is, we go home," Dean told her. "That cool with you?"

Bethany began to nod when she froze, jaw dropping in horror at something behind Dean. Dean whipped around at the same time Sam did, gun aimed through the doorway.

The woman spirit was back. This time, however, she was covered in blood, dripping from her caved in forehead and trailing down her bare arms. Her white slip was in tatters, and her entire chest was a gaping hole. Her ribs stood out, blood stained and broken, some even still hanging, not quite broken off yet.

Even as Dean tried not to gag, tried to keep his gun steady, her arms reached up with supernatural speed. Straight for Sam, who was backing away, only straight towards the railing of the stairs.


	8. Chapter 8: The Unclean Pages

_A/N: So I suck at updating; y'all knew that already. But there's about to be a flurry of chapters, and this fic will be posted in all its finished glory. Thanks to everyone who are still watching and waiting!_

* * *

___Out, damned spot! out, I say!- One; two; why, then 'tis  
time to do't ;-Hell is murky!-Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier,  
and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call  
our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to  
have had so much blood in him?_

___-Lady Macbeth, William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (1603-1607)_

"No!" Dean shouted, aiming the gun and firing. The woman disappeared with a wail. Sam was still stumbling backwards, and when he hit the railing he panicked, trying to throw himself forward. Dean caught hold of his flailing arm and hauled him back, and they fell forward into the dark hallway.

"Bethany, get up here!" he yelled. Sam was trying to push himself up, but his brother's face was pale, and his hands were still shaking. "You okay?" Dean asked.

Sam managed a nod. "Yeah," he said, his voice trembling. "I'm great. Fuck."

The use of the curse word by his usually clean-mouthed brother was enough to tell Dean just how not okay Sam really was. He got himself up to standing and hauled Sam to his feet. The minute shaking of Sam's arm left Dean wanting to hit something. He _hated_ it when they tried to go after Sam.

"Is she...is she gone?"

At least Bethany was in the hallway now. "For the moment," Dean said, turning and marching straight for the door. No more hesitating. "Let's end the game of hide and seek, how's that sound?"

"Sounds perfect right about now," Sam muttered.

Dean didn't even bother trying to gage temperature or anything, simply kicked the door open. The entryway curved to the right, and Dean found himself in one of the most opulent rooms he'd even set foot in before, including Zachariah's golden room of treats.

It would've been more beautiful if it hadn't been shredded.

Like the basement, this room showed exactly what the rest of the hotel should've looked like: torn up, mangled, and destroyed after fifty years of being abandoned. The glass doors and windows on the far side of the room were broken, the drapes ripped and moving ever so slightly in the breeze from outside.

And when the moon shone in for just a moment, coming through the windows, Dean caught sight of just how much more damage had occurred in the room.

Blood stained nearly everything in the room. The carpet was encrusted with it, the walls were painted with it, and even the ceiling had been spotted. "Woah," he breathed, eyes wide. Clouds moved back in front of the moon, taking away the source of natural light, but now that Dean had been shown the blood, it was hard to not see it.

"Holy crap."

Sam's flashlight's beam moved around the room, taking in all the bloodstains. On the wall switches. The lamps. The broken chairs, the sliced up sofas.

Dean carefully stepped around and through the room, checking out every corner, every part. For the most part, despite the overturned furniture, Dean couldn't see any place to stash a body. His eyes cut to the balcony beyond the broken glass, but quickly dismissed it. Even if the guy had fallen off the balcony, the cops would've been able to find him. Would've been pretty damn easy, even for them.

Dean glanced back at Sam, who was moving around the room in much the same manner Dean was. Near the entryway was Bethany, her eyes simply taking in everything. "You okay?" he asked her. Despite the fact that she seemed physically okay, a fact that Dean and Sam couldn't claim anymore, she looked even paler than she had before. Shock could just as easily kill a person as a fall could.

Bethany began to nod, then shook her head. "He...he killed her up here," Bethany whispered. "She died up here."

Couldn't say for certain, but yeah, there was a good chance that their bloody, cut open ghost was Mrs. Deventon. "Probably, yeah," Dean said as gently as he could. Considering the amount of blood up in the suite, it was enough to freak anyone out.

"Dean."

Dean move his attention back to Sam, who was looking at something on the ground. Scattered in the corner were more of the newspapers; these, however, looked more intact than the others.

Yet it wasn't a newspaper that Sam picked up, but another piece of paper nearby. "What is it?" Dean asked.

Sam frowned, turning it over. "It...it looks like a diary," he finally said. "Or at least, a part of it. It's stained pretty bad, hard to read. But the date on the top is April 11th, 1963. Handwriting looks beautiful and elegant. Probably a woman's."

Dean made his way across the room, eyes still darting towards the corners. The uneasy feeling he'd had right before the spirit had shown up had dissipated for the moment. Still, better safe than sorry.

And god knew when the other bastard would show up.

Sam handed the piece of paper over, letting Dean take a better look. The paper wasn't just stained, it was saturated with blood. Only a few words near the top of the ripped page could be made out, but Dean could make out 'William' and 'beach' and 'happy'. It only made his gut tighten further, this time in sympathy. Fifty years ago, there'd been a happy woman in the suite, with her husband and two family members.

"There might be more of the diary around here," Sam said softly. He looked just as sickened by the room and the diary page as Dean felt. "Maybe give us more of something to go on."

"Yeah," Dean said reluctantly. He held his hand out for the bag and began digging through it for the additional flashlight. They'd both had them at some point, but god knew what had happened, in all the running. "Did I break mine when I fell?" he asked when he couldn't find the extra.

"Actually, I broke mine, in the fall," Sam admitted as Dean continued to dig. "This one's yours. I think you fell on it, but yours still held."

Probably explained the pain in Dean's ass and the now dull ache spreading through his legs. His fingers touched something cold and metal, and when his thumb found the light switch, Dean could've crowed. "Yes!" he cheered instead, pulling the flashlight out. It wasn't one of their newer ones, but at that point, Dean didn't care.

"Happy now?" Sam asked, though there was an amused grin on his face.

"Ecstatic," Dean dead-panned, making Sam's grin widen. "What say we find the bedroom?"

"You're not my type," Sam replied. "And yes, you did so walk into that one."

He kinda had, but Dean was far too thrilled with his flashlight find to care. He used his new light source to locate the two doors on the other side of the room. Bethany was still standing by the entryway, and Dean doubted she'd moved at all since she'd come in. "Bethany," he called, and that seemed to catch her attention. "Gotta keep moving."

Bethany nodded jerkily. "It's just...there's so much blood," she whispered. She seemed much more subdued than she had been before. "I know the police said it was bloody, but...Thomas died bloody, too..."

Thinking about bloody brothers wasn't exactly one of Dean's favorite hobbies, either. "We need to find the bedroom," he said, and that caught her attention.

"Where they found the bodies?"

"Where they found the bodies."

"Oh."

Yeah, wasn't exactly a better subject then her other one, but it was all Dean had. "Clear," Sam said from his left, where he'd gone wandering. "Kitchen, dining and living room area, and an extra, small bedroom, all clean. No body, nowhere to even hide one. Might've been the executive suite once, but it's pretty sparse now."

That left the bedroom. Trying to keep up his positive attitude, Dean moved across the room with purpose, flashlight and gun at the ready. He took a moment to decide between the two doors, then reached for the left door with a steady hand. Before he could even touch it, though, the door silently slid open. "That's...cool," he said after a moment. "Room service at its best."

No one replied. "Tough crowd," he muttered, but stepped inside.

It was another bathroom, and it proved to be just as destroyed as the suite. The mirror above the sink was broken into shards, though Dean couldn't find any on the floor. The sink itself looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, and the curtain in the tub was slashed in several places. Dean was beginning to lose his positive attitude fast.

Tucked in the corner, though, was something that caught his attention. "What is it?" Sam asked from behind him, then, "Sorry," when Dean jumped.

"Thanks for the warning," Dean said, tossing a half-glare over his shoulder. Sam shrugged sheepishly. "Look, in the corner."

Amongst the rubble of the room was a small, white piece of paper. Sam kept his flashlight trained on it as Dean carefully stepped through the debris to take it. Usually, pieces of paper didn't catch their eye. There was always paper strewn about in the midst of a poltergeist attack, or a werewolf clawing inside a room, or the dozen other things that could happen.

But in this case, the more paper they found, the happier Dean would consider himself. Anything to tell him what really happened.

It was in the same handwriting as the other piece of the diary, though this paper was even smaller and ripped up. No blood stains, though, which made it easier to read the fragment. _Will left to do laundry with_

Spooky. "Anything?" Sam asked.

Dean merely handed him the piece of paper. "What is it?" Bethany asked from the bathroom's doorway.

"Just a fragment from the diary," Sam told her while Dean took a look around. No broken walls, no places obvious to hide a body. There wouldn't have been anywhere here for the murderer to have hidden in or died in. "Not particularly useful."

That left the other door. Without preamble Dean stepped out, only to find Sam ahead of him, ready to push the door open. It slid open without a creak at his light touch. More carefully then they had with the bathroom they moved inside the room. Once they were all inside, Dean couldn't help but cast a glance back at the door. Having doors locked behind him was a constant in their line of work.

"Dean?"

Before Dean could turn around, the lights suddenly all came on. From the overhead lights, the broken lamp in the corner, the wall lights around the room. Two of the bulbs were broken, but it didn't matter. They all switched on at once.

And revealed a room worse than Dean had thought. Much worse than the main room of the suite. The entire place was _covered_ with dried, old blood, but especially the bed. There wasn't a single part of it that hadn't been caught in what looked like a blood bomb explosion. The floor was littered with police tape and other random pieces of furniture and paper. "Oh god," Bethany breathed, backing away from the bed.

Even as they watched, blood began to drip from the sheets, from the bed posts, and from the wall. The steady _drip_, _drip_, _drip _was just loud enough to catch Dean's attention, and just as wrong as the tapping and creaking from the lobby had been.

Someone had died in the room, all right. Someone had died terribly. Dean couldn't imagine how that much blood could come from two people, let alone one.

Then the lights began to flicker. Guess the show and tell was over. "We need to leave," Bethany begged, eyes searching for the door, then back to Dean. "Please, we need to leave, before-"

One minute, the corner of the room was deserted, and then the next, it wasn't. The sonuvabitch was back, and if Dean had to hazard a guess, he looked more pissed off than before. The lights continued to flicker violently around the man. His axe was gripped tightly in his right fist, and when he raised his head, his empty eye sockets were the first thing Dean saw. There was no blood behind them, no brains or bone. There was simply nothing, like a black hole.

And he was moving towards them.

Bethany screamed when he took his first step forward, but Dean already had his safety off. Even before he could pull the trigger Sam had pulled his. Two iron rounds went straight through his gut, and with a scream he vanished.

But the lights continued to flicker, enough that Dean thought he was going to have a seizure. "What the-?"

_More than one ghost in the hotel, you dumbass_, Dean could hear himself saying. _Get the hell out of there, now!_ "Move," he ordered, heading for the door. Bethany needed no prompting this time and ran as fast as she could into the main room. As soon as she cleared the doorway, though, the door slammed shut behind her, leaving Dean and Sam to almost run into the wood.

"Sam! Dean!" Bethany shouted from the other side. "I can't...the door won't give!"

"Back away from the door," Sam told her as Dean launched a kick to the door. Pain exploded through his leg at the impact and he stumbled backwards, gasping for air. Strong arms kept him from hitting the floor, the floor that was beginning to squish beneath his feet. One glance at the bed proved why: it was still dripping blood.

"You okay?" Sam asked, even as he got him upright. "Jesus Dean, I meant for me to do it, your legs-"

"It's like a frickin' brick wall, don't bother," Dean said. The scent of the blood was starting to fill his nostrils, and he shut his eyes, trying not to gag. Between the lights and the blood he could practically taste, he needed out of the room, _now_.

And then Bethany screamed from beyond the door.

"Bethany!" Dean yelled. Sam was pounding on the door, kicking at it, only to curse and stumble backwards. He looked as sick as Dean felt.

A muted _thud_ followed, but Bethany continued to scream. Dean stepped forward for the bag, feeling the carpet squelch beneath his shoes, staining them dark red. Sam dared to put a single iron round in the door, but it didn't so much as dent the wood. Nothing else in the bag proved of any merit.

Another _thud_, and this time she broke off into a sob. "Bethany, the door!" Sam shouted. Desperately Dean began to scan the room for something, anything to get them out of there. The flickering lights left him wanting to shut his eyes and wake up somewhere, anywhere that wasn't this goddamn hotel. He forced himself to look anyways.

Beneath the bed, becoming quickly covered in blood, was a broken, rusty iron pole. Sam continued to pound and kick at the door, leaving Dean the one to reach for it. He forced himself to crouch near the bed. The smell of death beneath the blood made him almost retch, the bloody bed inches from his face. The iron pole itself was covered in slick, dark blood, and as quickly as he could Dean caught a few non-stained pieces of paper to grab for it.

And stopped, his hand catching on something else.

Sam gasped, and Dean whipped around in time to see the door fly open, taking his little brother with it. Outside in the room, Dean could make out Bethany's huddled form near the door. She jumped when Sam fell through, though. Still alive.

The lights from the room were no longer flickering. They'd all gone off again, like they had before. Dean dug out his flashlight from his pocket to use again, pulling out what he'd inadvertently found.

The papers fell away, revealing a battered, dirty old book. _Diary_ read across the front.

Bethany's voice drifted in from the suite. "He...He stopped. Why did he stop?"

"Dean, what is it?"

Dean swallowed. "The diary," he said, turning to stand. "The book's mostly still in one-"

His eyes turned to face the bed, and sightless eyes stared back at him. Dean startled into a fast standing position, hitting the wall near the door in his haste to rise. The woman ghost was back, except she wasn't moving. She was laid out on the bed, fitting in perfectly with the bloody décor. Her dented-in head was twisted to face Dean, and blood soaked nearly every part of her. Her chest was ripped open, blood slowly sliding down her visible ribs.

Her mouth was parted on a silent scream, her face forever frozen in the terror she'd felt when she'd died.

"Fuck," Dean breathed out, voice shaking. "Holy shit."

The lights flickered again, once, twice, and the third time took the bloody specter with them. The entire suite was silent. Dead silent.

Sam was suddenly next to him. "Where did you find it?" he finally asked. "Everything stopped when you grabbed the diary. Where...?"

Dean managed to point to the pile of papers near the bed. "Bethany?"

"Y-Yes?"

"You okay?"

Bethany's laugh was strangled and god, could Dean find any better adjectives? "Ask me later, when I'm home and safe. We need to leave."

"Yeah, workin' on it," Dean said, gazing down at the diary. This was the key. It was enough to have scared the sonuvabitch off. He flipped the cover open and found, in the same neat handwriting as the other two scraps, the words: _The diary of Rita H. Deventon_. The wife.

He quickly flipped through the pages. A few pressed flowers, a ticket stub to a movie. 'Will' this and 'Will' that. The day he proposed, the day they married.

When he began to reach ripped pages he forced himself to slow down. The words talked about the vacation, the beach, getting sunburned. Usual, happy things. The others were mentioned as 'Annie' and 'Tony' in a happy, friendly manner. Most of it was missing.

Snippets from the pages were enough to form a better picture.

_Will's gotten so moody lately, like we weren't on vacation at all. I tried to call him to bed, but he wouldn't come. I don't know what's gotten into_

_They've had a fight of some sorts; Will won't even look at_

_and I stayed upstairs to let them figure it out on their own, settle it like men, but they were gone so long so I sent Annie down to_

_don't know what's taking them so long, it doesn't take that long to get to the laundry_

_god I don't understand, and he's screaming at me, trying to get the bathroom door unlocked, someone help me please he's out of his mind-_

"Uh, Dean?"

Dean forced his eyes from the page to where Sam was slowly rising, eyes on the thick piece of paper he was holding. The paper fell over his hands, enough that Dean could see the headline of the newspaper. It looked like the full edition, the perfect, missing piece to their puzzle. "Yeah, Sammy?" he said.

Sam began to read in a solemn tone, and Dean's stomach began to drop.

"'Mr. Deventon's body was discovered in the main room of the suite, just near the door. The axe in his hands was soaked with blood, and the blood trail from the weapon led straight to the master bedroom, where his wife was found on the bed, eviscerated.'" Sam looked up from the paper, face pale. "Dean, we've been after the wrong guy," he said.

"I know," Dean managed, before turning back to the diary and the last words Rita had written. The usually impeccable handwriting was hurried and messy, the page stained with bloody fingerprints.

_god I don't understand, and he's screaming at me, trying to get the bathroom door unlocked, someone help me please he's out of his mind, Will's out there with an axe and I'm bleeding and oh god I don't want to die, I don't want to die someone pleas_

The 'e' in please trailed off, the pen dragged across the page. Dean slowly raised his eyes back to Sam and swallowed hard. "He's not our missing body," he said. "He murdered all of them. Which means-"

Sam didn't say anything, leaving Dean to cut himself off. Which meant that the body could be anywhere, basement to the top. God knew what he'd done with the other woman.

The silence was broken by Bethany's scream.


	9. Chapter 9: The Unending Nightmare

___Have you run your fingers down the wall  
And have you felt your neck skin crawl  
When you're searching for the light ?  
Sometimes when you're scared to take a look  
At the corner of the room  
You've sensed that something's watching you._

___-Iron Maiden, "Fear of the Dark" (1992)_

Dean raced out into the main room to find the man with the axe, William, steadily approaching Bethany's cowering form. "God, please," she whimpered, already pressed against the floor. "Don't...don't kill me, please no, I just want to go home, and I-I want my brother's watch, I don't want-"

"Hey!" Sam bellowed, neatly catching everyone's attention. "William!"

Sightless, empty eye sockets turned to regard them both, and Dean had to fight off a shiver. He was looking into an empty skull, an empty soul, and it left him feeling sick.

Then Sam spread his arms out, and his next words brought Dean's heart to a stop. "Come get me," he taunted, though his voice wasn't as strong as before. He moved quickly to a corner of the room, away from Dean and Bethany.

Dean started forward, diary dropped in deference to his gun. "Sammy, no-!"

"Get Bethany out of here, and do _not_ leave that diary!" Sam shouted. "Dean, go!"

Like hell. Like fucking hell. "Bethany, head for the stairs, _now_!" Dean yelled, and Bethany was off like a shot. The shadow of William was already stalking towards Sam, hands gripping the axe even tighter. Sam wasn't even reaching for his gun, instead busy shoving the roll of newspaper into his jacket, and Dean pulled his gun and fired straight into William's shadow.

William shuddered and winked out of existence for all of three seconds. Then he slowly melted back into the room, empty eyes gazing straight at Dean.

Dean's jaw dropped. Sam pulled his gun out and fired twice into William, and William disappeared. As soon as Dean began to see a shadow of the axe forming on the floor, he knew they were fucked. "Sam, c'mon!" he yelled, bending for the diary. "Sammy!"

Sam bit his lip but took off for the door as fast as he could, racing through. Dean hurried out right behind him, grabbing the door and slamming it shut. Even before it closed, he could make out the dark figure of William's ghost, still forming but slowly turning towards the door.

Shit.

Bethany was already in the stairwell, waiting where she'd paused before. "Move!" Dean shouted at her, slamming the door to the fifth floor shut. It wouldn't hold him off for long. If the iron rounds weren't even keeping him out, then shit, they were so fucked-

"Where?" Bethany shouted back, startling the brothers. "Where, exactly, are we supposed to go? You said we were after the wrong guy! They found Will upstairs in the bedroom, which means that the fourth guy, the missing guy, isn't our murderer!"

"We know!" Sam yelled, his free hand sliding through his hair in a typical Sam-Winchester-is-freaked-the-fuck-out manner. "I don't...I don't _know_, Bethany, I'm..."

This wasn't Sam. Sam didn't get flustered, Sam didn't second guess himself, Sam was his dependable in a crisis. But Ruby and Lilith and the angels had battered him, and Dean hadn't realized how much he'd relied on his brother's solid standing until just now, when Sam began to break.

The diary had to have a clue. "Look, the diary means something to him, and not in a good way," Dean tried to rationalize out loud. He forced himself to ignore Sam and Bethany, both of whom were looking at him for an answer. No pressure, right? "There's something in here that terrifies him, makes him back off." He had a pretty good idea why, and it had to do with the woman who'd written it, the woman he'd married and been happy with and yet had still managed to tear apart, literally. The hell had happened?

Maybe the answer was in the pages, but it wasn't Reading Rainbow hour, and they had a frickin' _poltergeist_ to outrun.

Annie and Tony were the unaccounted bodies, the ones they'd vacationed with. Dean shut his eyes and exhaled through his nose, trying to get a grip. If he could get a timeline of what had happened-

The thoughts began to hit him, and they came one right after the other, things they'd read, things they'd learned. His voice, Sam's voice, Bethany's voice. Rita's.

"_Two bodies, those of Mr. William Deventon and his wife, were found in the bedroom of the Executive Suite of the hotel, while another woman was found in the basement."_

_Will left to do laundry with..._

"_The cops said that the four nice people in the fifth floor had left three bloody corpses and one had vanished."_

_and I stayed upstairs to let them figure it out on their own, settle it like men, but they were gone so long so I sent Annie down to_

"_Mr. Deventon's body was discovered in the main room of the suite, just near the door. The axe in his hands was soaked with blood...Dean, we've been after the wrong guy."_

_don't know what's taking them so long, it doesn't take that long to get to the laundry_

"The basement," he murmured. When he opened his eyes, Sam was frowning, and Bethany was tugging anxiously at the sleeve of her sweater.

"What?"

"The basement," Dean said, more firmly. "They found the other body in the basement. Rita, the wife, she wrote in her diary that she sent the other woman downstairs to find the two guys, who'd gone to do laundry."

"We didn't find a laundry room," Sam said.

"We didn't look down all the halls," Dean countered. "There were two hallways left, remember? And then William popped up and we had to get the hell out of dodge."

"Oh god no," Bethany whispered, horrified. "We're going back down there? To the basement?"

Not like it was Dean's first choice, either.

Suddenly the door splintered behind them, and the tip of the blade from the axe shone through. The three of them raced down the stairs as fast as they could, using the flashlights to make sure they didn't trip. As soon as they hit the ground floor they flew out into the hallway, pushing into the kitchen.

Eerie, empty sockets met them in front of the hacked down door to the basement. Dean didn't even waste breath telling them to go back, simply ran out the door and into the lobby. "Where do we go?" Bethany cried, racing for the front doors. She grabbed the handles for the front doors and pulled, desperately trying to get them to open. "Oh god, let us _out_!"

Dean really didn't want to wait around for the tapping to start. "The other stairwell," he told Bethany, and she detoured away from the front door to the other door, where Sam already was. Except Sam was pushing himself into the door, hands sliding on the handle.

"Sammy?"

"It won't open," Sam grunted, eyes turning back to Dean, wide with fear. "Dean, I can't-"

_Tap_.

"Oh god," Sam breathed, eyes searching the lobby desperately. No shadow was visible, even with the flashlight.

_Tap_.

Heading away from the stairs, towards them. Dean scanned the lobby, but this time for a place to hold their ground. If they could hold him off, maybe they could get to the basement stairs from the kitchen. Except they were down to only a few rounds in their guns, and digging in the bag for more was going to take time. Way too much time.

_Tap_.

The loud _ding_ in the lobby made them all jump, right before the doors slowly began to open. _**Go,**_ the woman's voice, Rita's, whispered in their ear. _**Go!**_

"Everyone inside, now!" Dean shouted, and all three raced across the back of the lobby for the elevator. The _tap_, _tap_, _tap_, became quicker, closer as they scrambled inside. Bethany had barely begun to reach for the button to the basement before the doors began to shut. Just not fast enough. The shadow of William appeared, right in front of the doors, startling them all and sending them slamming back into the wall. His lips curled into a snarl, but he made no move to enter. Dean froze against the wall, watching as the doors began to shut on his terrible face.

Slowly the car began to descend. All Dean could hear was the pounding of his heart in his chest and the panting breaths from everyone in the elevator. All too soon the car shuddered to a stop, and whatever breaths Dean had managed to take were swiftly brought to a halt as he watched and waited. Waited as the doors began to open, watched as Sam's gun rose to match his.

The basement was dark and empty. No William to be seen. No Rita, either, but Dean had heard her.

"Did you hear that?" Sam asked. "From before?"

"Rita," Bethany said, nodding. "It was her. But she tried to grab Sam, didn't she?"

Dean shut his eyes tight. Maybe she'd been trying to lead him. Maybe she hadn't meant to scare Sam. Or maybe she'd been trying to kill him swiftly before William could get a hold of him, to spare Sam a gory death. Ghosts didn't make a whole lot of sense when they got trapped in places for years. Especially when they had to contend with a psychotic freak in the afterlife.

Laundry. They had to find the laundry. Dean cautiously began to move out, stepping over the banged up bottom of the elevator. Sam was right: it looked like it'd been dented sometime in its lifetime. Just like the rest of the hotel should've been.

The basement was as silent as a tomb, a thought Dean really wished he hadn't had. "Anything?" Sam asked, voice quiet.

Dean scanned the place with the flashlight, half afraid that it would land on a bloody axe. When it didn't, he let himself breathe a little easier. "Not yet," he said, equally as soft. William would be back. There was no doubt about that. It was just a matter of finding the laundry before he did.

As resolutely as he could Dean made his way through the wreckage that was the basement towards one of the hallways, hearing the steps of Sam behind him. When he glanced back, he found Bethany tip-toeing as softly as she could, barely making a sound compared to Sam's sure but quiet steps. Dean found himself almost grinning at the picture she made, then turned his focus back to his search. The hall lay straight ahead, empty and dark.

Broken glass from the emergency lights crunched under his boots as Dean made his way down the hall. Thankful that Sam had a flashlight on him as well, Dean let him light up the handle as he quickly pushed the door open. He aimed his gun around the empty room, finding more supplies, but nothing worthwhile. No laundry.

That left the other hallway, the one between the two staircases. The only door left.

Dean moved slower and even quieter across the basement to the other hallway, uneasiness making his gut spin and twist. "What's the matter?" Sam asked softly, catching onto his hesitation.

"I don't know," Dean admitted, but he still felt apprehensive as he approached. "Maybe because we've only seen two ghosts out of four. Maybe because William with the axe is probably still hot on our ass, and about that: why the hell didn't he get into the elevator with us? God knew he had the time and the chance."

"I'd wondered about that as well," Sam said. "Maybe there's iron in the elevator?"

Not like that had kept William down for very long before. He was adapting, learning. The iron would still do its job, but not for very long. If they had an unlimited supply of iron, sure. They'd be fine. But Dean was down to a few rounds, and god knew how many Sam had left.

They paused at the mouth of the hallway, staring down at it. One lone door on the right had a small window near the top with something dark across it. When Dean cast the flashlight's beam at it, painted letters became visible. LAU DR was all that was left. That was it.

"Ten bucks it's locked," Sam muttered, rubbing absently at his shoulder, the one he'd been throwing into all the locked doors above.

Dean quirked a tight grin. "No bet. I wanna reload before we do anything."

"He's going to come back," Bethany whispered from behind them. When Dean turned, her eyes were locked on the laundry room door. "This...he killed down here, too."

"Yeah, he did," Dean said. Sam was already digging through the bag on the floor, searching for the iron rounds. "But if we can find the other missing body, we'll be a step higher. Hell, if we torch the body, we might even be able to get out of here."

"Dean's right, Bethany," Sam said softly, rising. He handed the case with the iron rounds to Dean, who quickly started popping them into his gun. A handful of the bullets were put into his pocket as extras. "I think there's a reason we haven't been able to find the body."

"And you think it might be in the laundry room," Bethany said. "The body."

"We know he killed one person in there," Dean said. Sam had already finished reloading his gun, a few extra bullets tucked away on his person as well. "The other woman."

"Did you get a name from the diary?" Sam asked.

Dean handed the bag over to Sam, then pulled the diary from his jacket. None of the torn pages yielded anything. "No last name, just Annie," Dean said, replacing the book. "The other guy doesn't get a last name, either. Not that I can see so far: the diary's pretty damn thick, and we don't really have the time to go through it-"

Something clattered in the basement, and all three spun around, frozen and silent. Dean's flashlight moved quickly through the darkness, but his own beam of light found nothing. "Sam?" he asked.

"Nothing," Sam replied after a moment, reluctantly turning his own beam back down the hall. "We walkin' or talkin'?"

Possibly one of their dad's favorite sayings from when they were kids. "We're walking," Dean said, giving the standard response. The chill of the basement ruined the moment, and Dean shivered slightly. Cold was bad. Cold was very bad. "Laundry room."

Together the three made their way down the hall. Once they got there, Dean carefully shone his light through the window, but found nothing. Or really, no one: there were quite a few shapes in the room, but they looked like typical washing machines from the 60's. Dean grasped the knob – cool, but not frozen – and twisted fast, sliding into the room with the gun and flashlight both raised. Empty room.

"Guess it wasn't locked, after all."

"Good thing for your shoulder," Dean tossed back, scanning the room. Five large washing machines filled the left wall, while the dryers were on the right. Abandoned laundry carts were lined up on the back wall, a few haphazardly pushed into place. Through the windows of the dryers, there was nothing but darkness. The washers had their doors shut, no windows to peer inside.

Oh Dean _so_ did not want to open them and peer inside. Especially not when the very obvious blood stain on the floor had caught all his attention.

"No walls broken," Sam said. His eyes, too, kept moving warily back to the large blood stain on the floor. "Nobody could've been shoved inside." He made his way across the room, carefully peering inside the baskets. "Nothing," he said, sounding relieved.

Dean turned around in the room, flashlight shining. When he reached the doorway, he found Bethany standing outside, not even close to stepping inside the room. "Remember that whole 'we need to stay together' speech?" Dean told her. "Get in here."

Bethany began rapidly shaking her head. "I'm fine out here," she insisted.

"Bethany-"

"I...I can't," she said, voice shaking now. "I can't go in there, I can't-"

"It's okay," Sam spoke up, soothing her frazzled nerves. "Just stay close then, okay? Don't wander away. Just stay here."

Bethany nodded, but didn't look relieved. If anything, she seemed even more nervous.

When Dean turned to his brother, Sam gave a small shrug. "She's done pretty good so far," Sam said, and Dean heard a tone of defensiveness in his voice. "I'll keep an eye on her-"

"Hey, it's fine," Dean said, his voice doing the soothing now. "You did the right thing. It's good. We'll just...keep an eye on her."

Sam nodded, his shoulders dropping slightly. God but Dean had forgotten how many bridges they'd needed to mend between them both. Since when did Sam's helping lead him to defending himself against Dean? At least he wasn't looking as tense now, so Dean must've said the right thing for once.

"On the wall," Bethany said softly, catching Dean's attention.

"What?"

Bethany pointed beyond Dean's shoulder. "The wall," she explained, and as one the two brothers turned to the back wall.

Sure enough, there was a small red door in the wall, glass wall still intact. The door was ajar, and the dust and grime didn't completely cover all the words. _Emergency Fire Axe_, it read.

"Okay, so the killing frenzy did start down here," Dean said. He dug in his pocket for the diary again. There had to be something in there, something to give them a clue. "It doesn't make any sense. They were a happy couple, things were fine, and then wham, he starts smacking them all like Lizzie Borden? There had to be a reason."

"Maybe there's something in the newspaper," Sam said, reaching inside his coat. "Bethany, do you see anything out there?"

Bethany shook her head. "You think if you solve the mystery, you can get us out of here?" she asked. "I mean, we'd need a...a time line first, right? That's what they always need in the mystery novels I read at school."

Time line. Dean could do a time line. "Okay, time line. The diary says that the two guys went down first, on their own, so William must've killed the other guy, Tony, first. Then Annie, whoever she really was, died next when she'd come down to find them. Then Rita, before William bit the dust, however the hell that happened." Maybe he'd had a heart attack: that much anger wasn't good for a body.

As he began flipping through, one of the words caught his eye, and he paused, staring at the entry.

_April 11__th__, 1963_

_I'd really hoped that the vacation would stop this fighting between the two of them. But now, now I know why they're fighting, and it's stupid. Doesn't William understand that I love him? How can he possibly think I'd sleep with Tony? If I'd loved his brother, I would've married him, but it's William I wanted, William I lov_

"Oh god," Dean murmured, shutting his eyes. The 'brother' had drawn him in, and now he wished it hadn't. Why did it always come back to this?

"Jesus."

Seemed like they were all turning religious. He opened his eyes and found Sam looking over the newspaper, eyes wide. "What?" Dean asked, refusing to look at the diary.

Sam slowly raised his eyes from the paper. "They found the other girl in the basement _and_ the laundry room. Her head was in one of the washers, and they found a piece of her skirt hanging out from the furnace, where he'd tossed her in."

Something made a sound out in the basement, pulling Dean's horrified gaze from the dryers to the doorway. Where Bethany no longer was.


	10. Chapter 10: The Unfound Secret

___Trapped in a basement, and there's no way out  
I'm my papa's favorite, without a doubt  
I haven't seen the sun, for 24 years  
But now, my time is here_

___-Black Lips, "Trapped In A Basement" (2009)_

"Shit," Dean cursed, pushing himself out of the room. "Bethany!"

"Here," a small voice said to the right. She was bundled up at the end of the hall in one of the corners, as far from the main basement and the laundry door as possible. "I just...I couldn't stay, not when..." Her hand rose to her own throat, and her eyes pleaded with Dean to understand.

He did, he completely did. "Don't take off," he told her anyways. "You hear me? He's gonna kill you the same way he killed her if you don't stay close."

Fuck. It wasn't as bloody as what he'd done to Rita, but the escalation of violence was still easy to follow. God knew how Tony had died.

Tony, his brother. Dean's gut clenched, and his grip tightened around the damn diary. God he wanted out of here.

"What did you find?"

Dean raised his eyes to meet Sam's gaze and immediately wished he hadn't. Sam's look was solemn and knowing. _Shit_. "Stuff," Dean said, delaying the inevitable.

Sam pursed his lips. "You didn't like it when I lied to you," Sam said, voice low. "Don't lie to me now. You found something."

Dean didn't want to have this conversation, not now with a psychotic poltergeist on his ass, not ever. There'd been enough things said between them, things that wormed their way deep inside and cut where it would hurt the most.

"Dean-"

"Rita said William thought she was having an affair," Dean said. He took a deep breath before he added, "With the other guy that was there with them. With William's brother."

Sam's eyes widened, and even in the dim light of the flashlights Dean watched the color disappear from his face. "His brother," Sam said, his voice steady but so soft Dean wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't been waiting for it. He had to give Sam credit for keeping it together so well.

Dean nodded, barely. And he'd been the one to lay out the time line, too. The brother had died first.

Jesus, William had killed his _brother_ first. That had been the catalyst to all the other deaths. Even now, William couldn't let go, angry at his brother for the supposed adultery. God knew if it was even true.

Bethany had risen and taken a few steps forward, though she still kept as far from the laundry door as possible. "So...what, this is all about betrayal?" She didn't seem to notice the way Sam and Dean winced at the word. "William thought his brother and wife had betrayed him, and decided to kill him for it?"

Sam's eyes had shut, his face completely devoid of any color now. "Pretty extreme," Dean tried to throw out there, but Bethany had found her voice.

"You said they were so happy, him and Rita. The cops said they were four happy people. To think that they were sleeping around behind his back...he could be angry enough to kill." Bethany paused, looking at the both of them earnestly. "I mean, if one of you was betrayed by your brother, wouldn't you be angry enough to kill him?"

The words hit like a punch, effectively stealing the breath from Dean's body. Sam jerked like he'd been physically hit, and had to take a step back into the laundry room to catch himself. His eyes were open now, but they were cast to the floor, not looking anywhere near Dean.

And god, were they ever going to be able to leave this behind? Two steps forward, three backwards, always taking them right back to square one. They'd started getting back together, goddammit, and yet here they were again, two brothers separated by distance, by betrayal, by the memories of blood and demons and angels. It was never going to leave them. Ever.

Not unless one of them managed to break the hold of the past, and since when were the Winchesters any good at that?

But the look on Sam's face was damn near crippling. It physically hurt to see the fear, the guilt, the pain on Sam's face, and suddenly Dean was so done with it. Fuck the demons, fuck the angels, fuck all of them. Everything that had happened...it wasn't worth losing Sam over. Not when he'd fought so goddamn hard to keep his little brother.

He cleared his throat, watched Sam flinch slightly at the sound. "No," Dean said, quietly but firmly. "I wouldn't. I wouldn't have cared what my brother had done: I'd never be angry enough to kill him. Ever." And prayed that it was enough. _Sammy, please_.

Slowly Sam's eyes rose from the floor to meet his, surprise and still a little fear but god, a touch of hope too. "What if he almost ended the world?" Sam asked, like a whimsical joke for Bethany's sake.

Dean grinned. "No way," he said. "Still take a hell of a lot more for me. Guess I'm strange like that."

Sam huffed a shaky laugh, and just like that, Dean knew they were taking two steps forward. If they took any steps back now, it'd only be one. They'd keep moving forward a step at a time from here on out.

His sigh of relief came out misty, and the temperature drop was unmistakable. The flashlights flickered briefly, then began to fade. "Shit," Sam muttered. "Dean, we've gotta-"

"Find the brother, I know," he said. "He's here in the basement, somewhere. William couldn't have gotten very far with the body." If the body wasn't in one of the other rooms, if the body wasn't in the laundry room, then where? That only left the floor, walls, ceiling, or the main basement.

The floors were a no go: cement. The walls and ceiling were cement as well, all the better to make a solid foundation with. That left the main room of the basement.

"Mention finding more than one body in the furnace?" Dean asked. Sam quickly began flipping through the newspaper article, before shaking his head.

"Just her: there was still a lot of her left, I guess." He grimaced even as he spoke. Still, Sam was right: it took awhile for bodies to burn, so if William had shoved Tony in there, then the cops would've found him when they found Annie.

"Main area," Dean said at the same time as Sam.

Bethany shook her head. "Wait, what? No, what are...oh god, what are you doing?"

"We've got a spirit somewhere around, if the temperature drop's any indication, and the only place that William could've stashed his brother was in the main area of the basement," Sam explained. "I'm betting if we find him, if we torch him, we'll probably get rid of William."

And that would make Dean's night a hell of a lot brighter. Personally, Dean wouldn't have minded putting this particular sonuvabitch on the rack and giving him a full Alastair treatment.

Since he couldn't, though, he'd settle for torching him. It'd work.

They moved out, cautiously but with determination. The cold was starting to become biting, and Dean's eyes couldn't help but scan every corner of the room, watching for Rita or William. Or, god, Annie or Tony. Though Dean had a suspicion that if Tony's spirit were around, William would've suppressed it. Controlled it. Destroyed it.

"What if he...what if he cut the brother up into pieces?"

Bethany's voice made Dean pause, but Sam shook his head. "I don't think so. I think this was more a crime of passion, of convenience. He didn't really plan this out."

Dean raised his eyebrow. Sam flushed, the first real color in his cheeks since the whole brother revelation. "I took a psychology class," he said, voice defensive again. "I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong-"

"How'd it go?" Dean asked simply. No anger, no suspicion, nothing but honesty. If anyone could piece it together, if anyone could think outside the box and see the people instead of the murderous spirits, it'd be Sam.

Sam only hesitated for a second before coming back with his reply. "The axe in the laundry room. They went down to do the laundry, right?" He scanned a small cluster of objects, then headed down a path towards the center of the room. "Imagine that they talk. The brother says...says something stupid about Rita," he added softly, but continued to search.

"I can relate to that: I say a lot of stupid shit," Dean said, and the hint of a smile on Sam's face was all he'd wanted.

"He says, I don't know, Rita's ass is nice or something. William's overcome with rage, finds the axe on the wall, grabs it, wham, takes his brother out."

Dean, still searching, picked up right where Sam left off. "Annie comes in, finds William standing over his brother's body, starts screaming."

"William...he didn't mean to kill her?" Bethany asked, following behind Dean. Her eyes peered through the darkness, searching as best she could.

"I don't think so, no," Sam answered. His flashlight's beam, though flickering, still scanned the room, and Dean's eyes followed it, using it to mark his brother's progress through the basement. "She was a murder of convenience. He was angry at his brother, probably gave him a few hits after he died even, and then she showed up and found him with the body and the axe. He saw her as a target and a witness and killed her."

No one had to say anything about Rita. It was pretty obvious that after killing the first two people, William had gone off the deep end. Rita had been the next available, and possibly only option left to William.

Sam's flashlight went out completely. "Sam?" Dean called out immediately, and when he didn't get an answer, felt panic fly through his body. "Sammy?" he called again, louder this time, already moving towards where he'd seen Sam.

Just as he cleared the row and headed along the back wall, he heard a gasp for air, and watched as Sam flew across the room towards the elevator. "Sammy!" he yelled, turning his fast walk into a straight out run. Sam was pushing himself to his feet, but he was wincing as he did so, and it was taking too damn long to get up. "Sam-!"

Then Sam was flying again, this time hitting the closed doors of the elevator before slumping to the floor. "No!" Bethany yelled from behind Dean, but Dean was already sliding to his knees to get to his brother. Sam, who wasn't getting up.

"Sammy, c'mon," Dean murmured, dropping the flashlight and tugging Sam until his brother was face up. There was blood streaming from his forehead, and he'd have a killer bruise come the morning. If they got to see the morning. Dean glanced back briefly where Sam had flown from, but saw nothing. For the moment.

That let him take care of Sam. What was most concerning at that point was the fact that Sam's eyes wouldn't open. "Sam, wake up," Dean said, tapping Sam's face. Nothing.

The fear in Dean's chest was rising straight up towards panic again, but he resolutely pushed it down and tried to wake his brother up the hard way. "Sam, wake the fuck up, right now," Dean said, pushing his knuckles down on his brother's sternum. Sam whimpered under the painful assault, but Dean forced himself to not care, so long as Sam woke up. "Sammy!"

Slowly Sam's eyes began to flutter open. "That's it, keep going," Dean praised, putting his arm beneath Sam to prop him up. "You stay awake for me, all right?"

Sam blinked a few times, trying to reorient himself. "Wha-..."

The next time he blinked, his eyes widened and stared beyond Dean's shoulder. Whatever it was had obviously come back. Dean whipped around, hand on his gun. Six rounds, all he had left. But if he was going to use them, then he'd definitely use them to keep Sam and Bethany safe.

Rita stood before him in all of her gory glory. Blood cascaded down every part of her, and Dean grimaced as he watched her lungs beneath her ribs try to move. She wasn't moving towards them, though, only gazing sadly at them all.

"She throw you?" Dean asked, never taking his eyes off the ghost.

"Yeah," Sam said weakly, before coughing. "Twice."

Yeah, Dean remembered that part just fine. "She do anything else?" he asked, thinking back to the silence before Sam had been thrown.

"She...she touched me."

Dean whipped around to his brother at that. Sam looked exhausted and just as bloodless as Rita did. "She touched you?" Dean asked, stunned. "She actually managed to-"

"I don't know how," Sam said. He was still gazing at Rita, though not as apprehensively as before. "It felt...wrong. Cold." He shivered. "She was trying to tell me something, but all I got were garbled, mixed images. In my head. She touched my head."

That's what she'd been trying to do upstairs, on the fifth floor. "Why you?" Dean asked, then immediately regretted it. Sam just gave him a look, one that was one-fifth annoyance, one-fifth resignation, and the rest all fear. Why not Sam, was the real question these days.

"What did she show you?" Bethany asked softly. Her eyes were locked on Rita, staring at her and almost through her at the same time. Dean knew that feeling.

"I couldn't really make sense of it all, it...it went so fast," Sam admitted, his hand absently rubbing where Dean had knuckled him.

Dean turned back to Rita, all but feeling the lightbulb going off in his head. "You know where Tony is," he said, and wasn't even surprised when Rita nodded. "Where?"

The flashlights went out all together. Dean reached to where he'd set the flashlight down and switched it off, then on, hoping it'd come back. After a minute, it flickered, then came back on, and he turned it towards Rita.

And couldn't help the gasp of terror that left him. William was standing over Rita, axe already descending. "No!" Dean yelled, unable to help himself, because he knew she was dead, dammit, but-

Rita screamed as the axe cut through her. Blood spilled and spattered, and the crunch of bones was audible. Bethany cowered against the wall, hands over her ears, but eyes locked on the gruesome death. Rita was shaking, flickering in and out so fast as William hit her again and again and again-

With one last terrified, awful scream, Rita seemed to melt into a bloody puddle and into the concrete floor itself. William's form shivered and shook, and then he was straightening and turning towards them, sightless sockets empty and haunting.

"Oh god," Sam whispered, fear in his voice. "Oh _god_."

Dean slowly raised his gun, his hand trembling. "Eat this, you sonuva_bitch_," he bit out. One bullet slammed through William's form as he moved forward, then another, and another. The third bullet pulled a scream of rage from the poltergeist, and he faded away. Dean swallowed hard, his eyes burning. Jesus. _Fuck_.

"He really killed her."

Dean turned to Bethany, who was still leaning against the wall, tears streaming down her face. "He did that to her," she whispered, biting her trembling lip hard. "He's still doing that to her."

He had nothing for her, nothing to say that would make it better, that would get them any closer to getting out. He slid his gaze over to his brother, who looked just as scared and shattered as Bethany did. "Sam?" he said softly.

Sam looked at him, eyes haunted. Then he shut them, took two deep breaths, and when he opened his eyes again, his brother was determined and unwavering. "I think I know where the brother is," he said.


	11. Chapter 11: The Unlit Ending

___I see the angels  
I'll lead them to your door  
There is no escape now  
Now mercy no more_

___No remorse 'cause I still remember  
The smile when you tore me apart_

___-Within Temptation, "Angels" (2004)_

That was exactly what Dean wanted to hear. "What did she show you?" he asked.

Sam shook his head. "'Show' is the wrong word. They were more just images and...and feelings." If the look on his face was anything to go by, they were bad, and Dean found his hand reaching to grasp Sam's shoulder before he'd even though about it. Sam gave a grateful smile at the show of support. "But I couldn't make sense of it...at first. After she threw me, though, it came together."

Sam swallowed and winced, shifting uncomfortably. "I honestly don't know how much of the pain right now is hers and what's mine," he admitted. "God."

Maybe Sam hadn't been rubbing at his chest because of what Dean had done. Then to see it happen right in front of him...

"Where is he?" Dean asked, forcing himself to focus. If they found the brother, then he could get everyone out.

Sam gave a wry grin. "The only place in the basement he could have been put without the cops finding him," he said, before casting a look behind him at the elevator doors. The ones Rita had all but thrown him towards.

Well, Sam hadn't gotten the message the other way. "Wait, he's inside the elevator?" Bethany said, clutching her arms around herself now. "We were _inside_ the elevator with..."

"I don't think he's in the elevator," Sam said, even as it clicked in Dean's head. The chewed up floor in the front, probably a desperate attempt on William's part to get his brother underneath the elevator. William's unwillingness to get near the elevator now, when they'd hidden inside. It wasn't the iron scaring him off: Dean doubted there was a single piece of iron inside of the doors or the car itself.

No. It was his brother's remains that had him spooked. Which meant if they really got to him, then they could send William packing, too.

"How the hell are we supposed to get the car up?" Dean asked, looking at the doors. Without power, it'd be a lot easier to prop the doors open, but a hell of a lot harder to get the car up far enough to burn remains.

"One thing at a time," Sam said, as if sensing what Dean was thinking. "Let's just get the doors open." He began pushing himself up, but Dean could see it was costing his brother to do so. Without a word Dean caught his brother and began lifting him to standing.

By the time they were done Sam was panting heavily, and if the death grip on Dean's jacket was anything to go by, the room was pulling a tilt-a-whirl. Still, Sam managed to open his eyes and focus on Dean after only a few seconds. "If those iron bars are still anywhere around, it'll make keeping the doors open a lot easier," he said.

"Stay with Bethany," was all Dean said in reply, already hurrying towards the door near the kitchen stairwell. At first glance, the iron bars were nowhere to be seen, and Dean warily searched the perimeter. It wasn't like the poltergeist could've picked them up and dropped them somewhere, or even really moved them, so where the hell...?

When he turned around, he got his answer. There, embedded in the wall behind the door, were the iron bars. Dean silently shut the door and began the task of pulling them loose. Thankfully, they hadn't been shoved in very far, but enough that Dean wondered again at the force needed. Jesus H. Christ. By a _poltergeist_, no less.

"We'll see who's better off by the end of the day," he muttered, tugging the last one free. He gathered them up in his arms and all but ran back towards the elevator, a part of him terrified he'd find William back already and his brother's body sliced and diced.

Sam was leaning against the wall next to the elevator, Bethany on the opposite side. "You're going to have to do it," Bethany said apologetically, cheeks flushed. "We just tried to get them open, but I don't have the arm strength to pull them back."

"No worries," Dean assured her, dropping the iron bars near the elevator doors and taking a good look at his brother. Sam still didn't look completely stable, but he was standing, and he had his jaw set which meant the rest of the world could stuff it: Sam was gonna do this.

So long as his big brother let him, of course. Unfortunately, Dean didn't really have a choice in the matter.

"On three," Dean said instead, taking Bethany's place near the elevator. Sam replaced his hands near the split in the doors, fingers in as best he could. "Bethany, shove the iron bars in when we get it open, all right?"

"I think they're too long," she said after a minute, leaving Dean to look at the bars again. She was right: they were too long to fit in the space. He clenched his jaw and scanned the nearby vicinity. There was enough crap there that something had to fit.

He didn't even have to say anything. "I'll find something," she assured him, then added quickly, "And I'm definitely staying close, I promise."

Yeah, Dean doubted she'd go far, not after the whole William and Rita show. God. He shuddered, then returned to the task at hand. Who knew how long the three iron rounds would keep William out of commission. "Ready?" he asked Sam.

"On three," Sam repeated, and Dean tapped his foot three times before they began to pull. The doors screeched in protest, but they reluctantly began to part. Dean could feel his arms straining with the amount of force being used to pull them open. Maybe there was really iron in them, given the weight of the doors-

At the last second they popped open, leaving Dean practically flying backwards. After a moment, he slowly released his grip on the doors, watching Sam do the same on the other side. The doors held open, no force necessary. "Huh," Dean said, eyebrows raised. Rita...?

"I've got something, but it's...it's stacked too high," Bethany's voice called, echoing over the empty space. When Dean turned to look, she was nowhere in sight.

"I've got it," Sam said, pushing himself away from the wall. He stumbled a little, then shook himself and marched resolutely down through the stacks of junk. Dean watched him go, concerned, but finally had to admit that Sam was as good as he was going to get until Dean could get him out of the house. Not like Dean was in a huge amount of physical wellness, either: his back and legs still throbbed, and he could feel the ache of a growing bruise.

A moment later Sam and Bethany quickly returned, with a wooden chair in Sam's arms. "I think it'll fit," Bethany said. "It looked about the right length."

Without preamble Sam turned it sideways and fit the back of the chair, from back legs to top, into the space where the doors slid. A few inches less on one side, but otherwise than that, it looked like a heavy enough piece of wood to hold it. "Good guess," Dean said, and Bethany gave a small grin at the praise.

Unfortunately, that'd been the easy part. And they were on a timer, one that Dean was more aware of with each passing second. They'd gotten about fifteen minutes last time before William had shown up. So far, they'd spent about five, six minutes, and if he was coming back faster...

Sam already had his flashlight in hand, but when he began to crouch to peer through the dented hole, his eyes shut tight and he swallowed hard. Nausea, which generally heralded a concussion. Dean pursed his lips but took the flashlight and hauled Sam to his feet. "People with a concussion shouldn't be doing a lot of ups and downs," Dean pointed out, even while his own legs were already protesting the near-future bending.

"And people with bruised, possibly sprained backs shouldn't be crouching, either," Sam countered. "No. I'll do it."

"Too late, I've already got the flashlight."

"You have two, since you took mine, just give it back."

"Make me."

"I can't believe-"

"Uh, guys?"

Both Sam and Dean turned to Bethany, who was already kneeling on the floor. "If you tilt the light in, I can see inside for all of us," she said, and while she didn't do it, Dean could practically _hear_ the urge to roll her eyes.

In silent agreement of her wisdom (not meekly, Dean Winchester did _not_ do meekly, even when chastened) Dean handed Sam his flashlight back. They flipped the lights on at the same time and shone the light into the small hole.

Bethany peered in as best she could, frowning. "Anything?" Sam asked after a moment. His eyes scanned the basement as he kept the light on, but Dean could see the rising nervousness. Yeah, time to roll.

"There's...something," Bethany said after a moment. "It looks like cloth. And something shiny, too." She glanced back up at them, biting her lip. "I couldn't see any skin. Though...it's probably not skin anymore, is it?" she added after a minute, looking sickened by her own realization.

"Let's get the car up," Dean said immediately, turning the light off. Sooner they got to the brother, the better things would be.

The old furnace suddenly went on. Bethany shrieked and scrambled away, into the elevator. Oh that was _not_ a good sign. "Bethany, out," Dean said, grabbing the gun from his back. His flashlight he tucked underneath his arm in order to grab the extra bullets from his pocket. Six rounds left, that was it. No extra bullets.

"I'm full," Sam said next to him, but he didn't look happy about it. "And then that's it."

Twelve rounds between them. And it was taking more and more to put William down for less and less time. "Be nice if Rita showed up," Dean said, but he had a funny feeling that Rita wasn't going to be helping them out anytime soon. It was them versus William, no help from their friendly (okay, violent, but still friendly) ghost.

And they still had no idea how the hell to get the car up.

"What if we moved the car up? To the next floor?" Bethany said. She was out of the elevator, but just barely. "The doors are held open, right?"

"Except we don't have power," Dean pointed out. "Hard to move the car up without power."

Sam shook his head slowly. "No, Dean, she's right. We _do_ have power," he said, pointing to the furnace. "Probably not one of William's smartest moves."

Turn William's freaky power switch abilities on its head. "I like it," Dean said, then reached inside the elevator and hit the button for 'L', hoping and praying that it'd go. "Please god, c'mon," Dean muttered, pulling his arm out.

Nothing happened. Dean found himself holding his breath when, after a long moment, the doors tried to close. When the doors were pushing on the chairs as much as possible, the elevator car slowly began to lift to the lobby. Dean lifted his flashlight towards the bottom of the elevator shaft the same time Sam did.

There, in a small pile, were the remains of Tony, the brother. The cloth that Bethany had seen was part of his shirt and pants, and while both were dirty, neither were particularly blood stained. The silver glint looked like a tattered watch on his wrist and a tie-clip with something engraved on it. _T.A.D. _were seen on closer inspection.

"Look out!"

Bethany's scream had Dean turning and firing without any hesitation. William's shadowed form, less than two feet from Dean, disappeared for a moment, before slowly reforming. Dean fired twice more in succession and William melted away permanently. "Sam-"

"Keep him off of me," Sam said, already moving into the shaft. "Bethany, I need the bag."

Dean forced himself to keep his back to the shaft, eyes on the area around them. Three rounds. Three rounds left. He could hear the bag being slid across the floor, then the zipper sliding open fast. The shaking sound that sounded like frozen rain told Dean that the salt – and a liberal amount of it, if his ears were right – was being poured down on the remains.

Dean slid his flashlight across the room. The furnace was still roaring, which meant that William was still nearby. Still too close. His beam of light crossed over the piles of junk, of broken down mattresses and tables from the hotel's lifetime. Once he reached one side, he began panning back to the other, gun at the ready.

His light beam suddenly caught onto the swiftly moving form of William, who had his axe raised and falling down on Dean's head. Bethany screamed next to Dean as he ducked and fired twice into William's chest, and the axe faded away. "Bethany, get into the elevator shaft!" Dean yelled. The closer she was to the remains, the safer she'd be.

From behind him, Dean could make out the sound of a bottle being squeezed, something soft hitting the floor. The fire accelerant. "Sammy, I need your gun," Dean said, reaching back. Solid metal hit his hand, and Dean reluctantly put his gun down in order to keep hold of the flashlight. It was there at his feet if he needed it: one shot left, seven shots total.

Another sound came from behind Dean, though it wasn't the striking of the match. Rather, it was the groaning of something heavy and full of metal, something big trying to move. He froze, paralyzed briefly by fear. The elevator. If it gave-

He couldn't stop himself from turning to look. Sam was digging in the bag desperately, probably trying to find the matches. Bethany was huddled on the ground away from the door and near the remains. "Sam, the elevator," Dean said, just as the elevator above lurched. All three of them whipped their heads up and watched as the elevator dropped a few inches.

Sam turned away first, his eyes catching behind Dean and going wide. "Dean!" he shouted, but Dean was already turning to fire. One iron round didn't stop William from coming, but another two pushed him away. Four rounds remaining between two guns.

They weren't going to make it.

Sam grabbed the bag and tossed it outside of the shaft, the matches already in his hands. "Bethany, get out of here," Sam said, even as the elevator dropped again. Bethany and Sam both ducked instinctively, but the elevator held. "Bethany!"

Dean didn't know if Bethany heeded Sam's warning, and hearing anything besides his own thundering pulse wasn't happening. "C'mon!" Dean yelled behind him, forcing himself to look around the basement. He had to trust Sam to get out of there in time, to get out before William killed Dean by axe or Sam by elevator, because he knew exactly who was pushing the elevator down on them: the one who was controlling the power.

The elevator groaned again, the screeching metal like nails on a chalkboard. He couldn't hear the match lighting up, couldn't hear if Sam had started the fire, if it would be enough to keep William at bay.

Movement from his left had him turning and firing straight into William's form. No sooner had he pulled the hammer back for a second shot did he feel the hairs on his back rise up. He whipped around and found empty eye sockets inches from his. Half a second later he was flying through the air and hitting the hard wall of the basement. The sudden grinding of metal, Sam and Bethany's yells, left him desperately trying to look away, to move, to do _anything_, but William had him pinned in place. The heavy _thud_ reverberated throughout Dean's body, and he couldn't even flinch at the sound of the elevator hitting the round floor. Couldn't even scream at the silence that followed, at how he didn't know where Sam or Bethany were, if they were dead, oh god-

The emptiness, the black void where William's eyes should've been, felt it was sucking Dean's soul in, paralyzing him completely, and cold spread throughout his entire body. Every part of him felt revulsion, and he desperately fought not to gag. He wasn't looking at emptiness, he realized suddenly. He was looking into William's _soul_, and it was so twisted, so dark and corrupted, and Dean had never felt so wrong or sick in his entire life. William leaned in even closer, and his fetid breath reeked of old blood and death. Dean fought to lean back and as far as he could, but his body remained frozen in place. A tear rolled from his eye as he shut his eyes tight. Sam could be dead, crushed under the elevator, and Dean didn't care if William sliced him into tiny bits, but goddammit, he'd fought to keep Sam _safe_-

The gunshot that followed left William melting away into the dark basement. Dean turned and found Bethany and Sam sprawled on the ground outside the elevator doors, Dean's other gun in Sam's hand. Sam panted heavily, chest heaving, but his hand and aim were steady. "You okay?" he asked. One round left in the gun.

Dean fell back against the wall, the relief enough to make him stagger slightly. "You?" he asked in return.

Sam grinned. "Ask me after we get out of here."

"The fire-?"

Sam held up the matches in one hand. The gun was set down, a single match lit. There was enough room in the dented hole of the dropped elevator, Dean realized, to easily slip a match in. The falling elevator would've taken out the fire, anyways. "Should I do the honors?" Sam asked.

Before Dean could say anything, the door to the furnace burst out, and the flames began licking out into the room. Then right behind Sam and Bethany, axe poised to swing and kill them both, was William, dark empty eyes murderous. "Sam-!" Dean shouted, gun raised to fire.

It didn't matter. Bethany whipped around even as Sam tossed the match through the hole. The fire caught easily, lighting up the bottom of the elevator shaft. William stuttered, winking in and out, the axe pulled higher and higher each time.

"Go to hell, you bastard," Bethany choked out, her eyes brimming with unshed, angry tears.

The scream that echoed throughout the basement wasn't William's, but it wasn't Rita's, either. The axe was thrown from William's hands, and Dean ducked to avoid being decapitated. As soon as it stuck in the wall it began to melt into blood. William turned in rage to his unseen attacker, but then began choking, hands reaching for his throat. Blood pooled in his eyes, sliding down his face, even as his chest began to open. Black smoke crackled and melted from inside of him, and William's body began to shake.

The furnace kept burning, flames finally catching hold of one of the mattresses and setting it on fire. Sticking around to watch William die wasn't an option: Dean had a feeling Rita, Annie, and Tony were making sure of that. "Stairs, now!" Dean yelled. His flashlight was hastily thrown into the duffel bag outside the elevator doors, and he ran back to pull Sam up with his free arm.

"Go!" Bethany shouted, and Dean all but dragged Sam to the stairwell near the kitchen, the closest exit they had. The broken door slid open easily, and Dean couldn't help one last look back into the room. It was burning merrily now, the flames from beneath the elevator also reaching out into the basement.

But it all paled in comparison to William's own light show.

Three separate trails of white mist circled around and around him, lifting him high off the floor. William was shaking violently, and blood continued to drip from his eyes. Slowly his form began to melt, blood pooling on the floor beneath him. The white mists suddenly all dove into the black center of his chest, and the room got a lot brighter.

Sam yanked at him, leaving Dean to stumble up the first few stairs before he caught himself and hurried after his brother. They raced through the kitchen, back into the lobby, and straight for the main doors. The second duffel was grabbed fast as Sam grabbed the handle and shoved hard.

They fell out and tripped down the stairs as William's last scream filled the air. Glass from all the windows shattered outwards, and Dean quickly covered Sam as best he could to shield from the broken shards. Light from inside filled the hotel, then suddenly vanished, taking William's scream with it. Silence followed.

Dean swallowed hard and looked back at the hotel, his breathing labored, his heart pounding to get out of his chest. "Holy shit," he managed, sitting up. The cool night air around him felt like a reward for surviving the hotel, and he breathed in deeply. Holy shit wasn't enough for what had happened.

Sam sat up beside him, but it was more of an anxious jerk then a relief-filled, 'we survived' sort of move. "Bethany?" he called, and Dean froze, scanning the area. She wasn't on the stairs or anywhere near them, which meant-

"Oh god," he whispered. With one shove he was up and racing back inside, Sam right behind him. Had she tripped on the basement stairs? Was she down in the fire? He'd been so determined to get Sam out, and he _knew_ he'd heard her-

"Bethany!" he shouted once he was inside the lobby. No matter how shut down the town got at night, the cops were gonna come looking after William's final bow out. His eyes rapidly scanned the lobby, and when he didn't see her, his gut lurched. "C'mon," Dean started, only for Sam to catch his arm.

"Dean, wait."

Dean whipped back around, incredulous, only to find Sam's gaze locked on the floor. Bewildered, Dean glanced down and saw the newspaper, the full one Sam had kept. He must've dropped it on the way out.

The pages were spread out, the cover to the far left, gruesome picture and all. The sports pages and the financial reports were all there, but on top of them all was a page with another picture. One of four smiling people. Dean crouched beside it and stared.

In the picture, eyes bright and happy, were the Deventons. William and Rita were cuddled together on the far right, smiling widely at the camera. Beside William was a younger man with an infectious grin, leaning with his elbow on William's shoulder. And beside him...

The caption below the picture read: _A picture taken by a bellhop at request of the guests shows the Deventons happy before the tragedy. Right to left: Rita and William Deventon, Thomas "Tony" Deventon (brother), Bethany Deventon (sister)._

Her blonde ponytail hung over her shoulder, and she had her arm wrapped around Thomas, a content smile on her face. She looked happy. They all did.

Through the broken shards of the windows, the sun slowly began to peek through. With the first light of day came the distant sound of sirens, the cops awake and on their way.

Without a word Dean rose and walked outside, Sam beside him.


	12. Chapter 12: The Unafraid Future

_A/N: The end. This is more of an epilogue, a wrap-up, as the actual tragedy/action ended in the last chapter. (I wanna know: how many were totally OMG shocked at the end, and how many of you had guessed at it with the clues I left?) Thank you so much to everyone who's left feedback; I hope to have new fics soon!_

* * *

___When I ran from the hounds of hell,  
Twist my foot, I nearly fell,  
I was lucky I was alive,  
One look back I could have died_

___-Asia, "Sole Survivor" (1982)_

The alarm beeped next to his ear, loud and clear and tinny. Dean knew he should've set it for a song of some sort, but unfortunately, all of the tunes on his cell phone would've been ignored. Growing up on the move, Dad always playing something on the radio, Dean had learned to sleep through music. So had Sam.

He pushed himself out of the chair and swiped a hand over his eyes, wincing as his legs stumbled a little beneath him. The bruise on his back was pretty damn significant, and even if he hadn't seen it in the mirror, the look Sam gave upon having seen it would've been telling enough.

Not that Sam was going to be winning any beauty contests at the moment, either, but so long as he was alive to enter those beauty pageants, Dean didn't really care.

And yeah, thinking about random ass shit like a beauty contest was far more preferable than thinking about the Ocean House Hotel.

He sat himself on the side of Sam's bed and took a good look at his brother. Six hours of sleep under his belt hadn't taken away the dark shadows beneath his brother's eyes. They had, however, added a nice, dark bruise around the bandage that was currently taped to his forehead. Rita might've been trying to tell them the truth, but she hadn't been kind in doing so. Still, she'd saved them all, in the end. Dean really hoped she'd gotten a chance at taking William out with Bethany, or 'Annie', and Tony's, help. She deserved that much, after being trapped in the house for fifty-odd years.

Dean glanced at the clock, then shook Sam's shoulder. "Sam," he called softly, shaking a little more firmly this time. Sam grimaced after a moment, shifted, but didn't wake up. "Sammy," Dean called again, a little louder.

Slowly murky hazel eyes peered up at him, sliding around the room before fastening onto Dean. "You with me?" Dean asked.

Sam's eyes began to close again. "Uh-uh, not gonna happen, bro," Dean said, tendrils of fear starting to curl in his belly. Oh, hey there adrenaline, guess you didn't get all used up the night before. "Sammy-"

"Sam Winchester," Sam croaked, before clearing his throat. "Born May 2nd, 1983, it's the year 2009, and I'm really, really tired, Dean. I'm fine, I jus' wanna sleep," he slurred, already halfway asleep again.

Dean felt his heart start to slow back down. "Yeah, you can sleep," he said. He'd been waking Sam up every two hours ever since they'd gotten to the new motel. So far, he seemed fine, had answered all the right questions in all the right manners. He'd be fine: Dean would let him sleep.

Dean stood, wobbling a little as he yawned. Thankful for the small favor that was a motel layout, he sidestepped back to his bed nearest the door without bumping into a thing. All motels looked the same. And so long as they didn't look like the Ocean House Hotel, Dean was just fine.

He flopped onto the bed with a small groan, not bothering the set the alarm again on his cell phone. Sam was fine, so they could both sleep and catch up. The sun was trying to peek in through the closed curtains, and the time was somewhere in the afternoon. Dean didn't care. Frankly, he didn't even know where they _were_, only that they were out of Dennis, Massachusetts. As nice as the town had been at first, both brothers had made a silent agreement to get the hell out of dodge. Dean had quietly told Gloria that they had to go, emergency work related issue, had snagged a quick breakfast to go from her bounteous supply, then had hurried out to where Sam was waiting in the Impala.

Neither had said a word all the way out of town, though Dean was pretty sure that had to do with the fact that they were holding their breaths.

He shifted and winced, trying to find a comfortable position that didn't press on his back or his tail bone. He finally decided on his right side, and the pillow was the perfect type of cool against his cheek. The glance over towards Sam's bed was instinctual, wanting to make sure that Sam was really okay.

What he hadn't expected was Sam to be looking back, eyes held open only by sheer determination. "You 'kay?" Sam mumbled. "You made a sound."

Something warm filled Dean's chest at Sam's sleep-filled words. Keeping himself awake because he thought Dean might need help. And he knew that if prompted, Sam would push himself out of bed to help Dean, no matter whether he was two seconds away from passing out or not.

"I'm fine, Sammy," he assured him, smiling. "Just sore, dude. Go back to sleep."

Sam assessed him for himself, then closed his own eyes. It didn't take long for the lines in his face to smooth out, or the tension in his shoulders to fade away.

Dean closed his own eyes, sleep following immediately.

* * *

"Do you even know where we are?"

Sam's question made Dean grin and look up from the newspaper he was currently perusing. "Nope," he said cheerfully. "All I know is that six down in the Washington Post is 'colon'."

Sam shook his head in fond exasperation. He didn't flinch as he did so, and he wasn't shying away from lights, so Dean figured that the concussion was pretty much healing just fine. The bruise on his head, though...

Dean winced as he looked at it again. It was dark and angry looking now, the stark white of the bandage making it even scarier. And Dean knew that there was a lump in the back of his brother's head, one that was tender to the touch. It was pretty well hidden under his mop of hair, but still there. Not bleeding, at least. As far as injuries went, they'd actually come out okay. Considering there'd been a real possibility of getting chopped up, they were doing just fine.

"Don't."

Sam's voice brought his attention back to where his brother was gazing at him, face full of understanding. "Just...don't," he said again. "It was a bad night. We got through. We did wind up saving Bethany, in the end. She got her brother's watch, the only thing holding her to the hotel."

"I wonder if Rita was trying to protect Bethany," Dean said after a moment. "Rita was pretty ravaged, but Bethany...Bethany didn't look dead. Scared, like she didn't understand what was going on. But she didn't remember being dead. Like Molly, out on the highway, with the farmer?"

Sam nodded, shifting slightly on the edge of the bed where he was seated. "I was thinking the same thing. We kept her pretty safe, though. Without us..."

He trailed off, looking down at his hands. Without them, Dean had a feeling that William would've gotten to Bethany. Probably _did_ get to Bethany every night. So long as Bethany persisted in trying to find her brother's watch, William would always continue to kill her.

He wondered briefly, now that they were gone, if the hotel looked just as broken down as it should.

Pushing away thoughts of the last residents of the hotel, Dean turned back to one of the two survivors, who was still gazing at his hands like it held all the answers. "How's your head?" he asked.

Sam glanced up briefly before shrugging. "She didn't throw me that hard," he said. "Well, okay, she did, but I'm fine."

"I meant the first time you hit the elevators," Dean said, raising his eyebrow. "The 'wham', I think you said. When you got knocked out."

Sam winced ever so slightly, but Dean caught it. With it came everything Dean had sworn he'd remember when they got out, and now was the perfect time to bombard his brother. Unfortunately, now that he was there with his perfect opening, Dean didn't have the first clue of what to say.

"It's not really that bad," Sam said, rubbing at the back of his head. "I made it out, the concussion's gone. We're good. Right?"

And even while Dean was still struggling to get the right words in order, Sam's tentative, hopeful gaze was on him, and Dean suddenly knew the words didn't matter so much as the timing did. Say nothing, and he'd shut Sam down. Say it too late, and it would seem forced.

"We did pretty damn good in there," Dean said. Sam frowned, not following where Dean was going with it. Hell, Dean wasn't even sure where he was going with it. Still, no one could say that Dean didn't think on his feet. "You and me, taking care of that nasty sonuvabitch. No angels, no demons, nothing."

"Yeah, made it pretty easy," Sam replied. "For us."

"You thought the other night was easy?" Dean said, keeping his tone light. "Must've been somewhere else other than a murderous hotel."

"The hotel itself wasn't killing people-"

"Oh shut up," Dean grumbled, but Sam was still smiling. "My point is-"

"I know," Sam said, serious once more. He swallowed and glanced down at his hands again. "I know, Dean. We proved that we can handle the ghosts and haunted places. The easy stuff, compared to...compared to what I let out," he added, voice pitched low. "I get that."

"What we proved was that we can work together," Dean insisted. Sam's eyes darted up to meet his. "We made it through a bitch of a night. And yeah, in a way, it was easy, because you know what? I knew I could trust you to have my back. And you did, every step of the way. I didn't even think about it, or second guess it. I just...I just _knew_, Sammy, okay?"

Sam was silent for a moment, and Dean rigorously wracked his brains for anything else to say, anything that would cement this for Sam. To let Sam know that Dean trusted him, that Dean wanted him there. That Dean wanted to be a big brother still, and that nothing was going to change that.

"William was kind of an asshole, wasn't he?"

Sam's words brought Dean's head up to stare at him. His brother's words had been quiet, but they'd been strong, too. He was meeting Dean's eyes, determined to put himself out there. Hopeful. Saying so much more with his random, casual sentence that had absolutely nothing to do with the axe-murderer.

Dean slowly began to grin. "He was," he said. "He really was." _But I won't be_, he added silently. _I trust you. I know you. Even if you were to betray me, I'd never hurt you. I believe you, in everything_.

When Sam smiled back, Dean knew his three words had been enough. They sat for a moment, content to know that things were good. Things were going to keep being good.

"So," Sam said, a moment later. "Want to look for another haunted house?"

He didn't think Sam was really surprised by the newspaper thrown his way, but his little brother still laughed. Dean sighed and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes briefly. No more haunted houses. They needed a break. Maybe go south for a little while, see some beaches, stay away from Massachusetts...

"Uh, Dean? Six down isn't 'colon'. Not in the slightest."

After he found something else to throw at Sam.

END


End file.
